Posts Tagged Revenge Art
News Art – ME VS KANYE WEST, STEPHEN FRY & TWITTER
Posted by Heidi in Entertainment, NewsART Highlights, Technology on August 16, 2010
Celebrities are like Greek Gods… they live in a world of power and privilege that us mere mortals can only dream about. Also many of them are getting beards these days. And several were in that film Clash of the Titans.
But, just like the Greek Gods, they often abuse their power and fame.
Kanye West did this while I was away.
Kanye began using Twitter and decided to follow just one person, at random. He chose an anonymous 19 year old from Coventry, Steve Holmes. He knew that this would change the boy’s life immediately, giving him a taste of the life of a god.
But he did this without preparing the boy by first asking his permission, sending him a warning or letting some slutty goddess come and give him a horse with wings. Steve hated the sudden media attention he got.
Why did Kanye do this? To amuse himself.
I decided it was high time for some Revenge Art on behalf of this Steve Holmes. This time the target had to be celebrities and Twitter.
And there is no greater Twitter celebrity than British national treasure @StephenFry.
How would Stephen FRY feel if he was treated/tweeted as carelessly as Steven HOLMES was? How would this Greek God like being randomly chosen by the slings and mouse arrows (WORDPLAY ALERT!!) of fortune to have their life turned around?
I, @heidi_regan, a small time and beginner tweeter (representing small time tweeter Steve Holmes), began following @StephenFry the giant celebrity (representing Kanye West). I did this completely out of the blue and WITHOUT WARNING.
Kanye West joins Twitter
The results were almost immediate! Within only 20 minutes of my choosing to follow him Stephen Fry was SWAMPED with 1,653,675 followers! A week later and he had 20,000 more! Another week and it was almost 40,000 more!
I hadn’t thought to check his follower numbers before I added him but I would assume it was no more than 400 or so because no one has many more friends than that. Not to mention the fact that lots of people don’t like the internet (I find it condescending).
I can only imagine the anguish Stephen is now going through as he tries to understand and cope with this sudden explosion of attention and fame. So I will imagine it.
I have also represented it in art.
To portray my attack on the destructive Greek Gods I have created this sculpture of a triumphant Perseus killing the Medusa. Perseus was, like me, a mortal who slew a powerful god/followed them on Twitter.
Also Medusa was a goddess who was both beautiful and ugly, like fame, and she had hair that would have been very difficult to manage, like celebrities.
Actually I just remembered that Perseus was meant to be part God. This could be said to imply that I also am part god/the chosen one, which is very flattering, thank you.
News Art – HARRY POTTER WORLD
Posted by Heidi in Entertainment on June 21, 2010
The Harry Potter theme park has opened in Florida. It gives fans a chance to feel they are really experiencing life in the village of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts Castle. Art director Alan Gilmore said it is an immersive environment that allows you to enter the Harry Potter world.
This made me angry and worried and fearful, an emotion I often get when children’s education is at stake and I have termed Angworful! These people are playing with fire and they are playing with our children’s souls, which are very likely highly flammable!
What JK Rowling and her flunkies seem to be ignoring here is that children have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. If they have created a world that is as realistic and immersive as they claim than many impressionable young minds will come away thinking that the village they have just walked through and the ‘magic’ they have just witnessed is REAL and TRUE TO LIFE.
In reality we all know that Hogsmeade and Hogwarts are MILES away in England and NOWHERE NEAR Florida!
This is flagrant abuse of trust and I don’t even want to think what it will do for tourism in the true Hogsmeade. For SHAME Universal! I have written to Hogswarts, care of an owl I trapped, and offered them any help finding legal representation on this matter or locating a spell that stirs up Health and Safety lawsuits for theme parks (I think it’s called Heartconditionus).
While I wait to hear back from them I have made a Revenge Artwork to give them a taste of their own medicine.
I staged a musical called Wicked where I took a well respected American politician (The Wizard of Oz) and made a fake and false account of his life story.
See how the Americans like that!… (so far, according to box office sales, they like it a lot… I’m quite proud really, the whole crew put their heart and soul into getting it up and running at such short notice and it’s just been a complete labour of love. I mean if no one came to see the Revenge Art/musical it would still have been a satisfying process but the fact that people are liking what we’ve made here is just a testimony to why you should always follow your instincts or anger over Theme Parks).
MAY 23RD – DUCHESS OF YORK CAUGHT BY UNDERCOVER REPORTER
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was filmed by an undercover News of the World reporter offering access to Prince Andrew in exchange for an agreed sum of £500,000. She was recorded to say to the undercover reporter, ‘look after me and you will get it back tenfold’
Fergie Caught Out
The cheek and the betrayal of this hurt me to the core. The Duchess acts as though the fame and privilege the public has bestowed on her and her ex-husband is something they were entitled to and can use to barter for cash, rather than treat with the responsibility and respect it deserves.
I decided to do some Revenge Art. I went to the Victoria and Albert museum, her husband’s ancestors’ home. There I posed as a museum guide and charged people money to show them around.
I was using the trust that the Royals had put in me, as a patron to their museum, and abusing it by accepting money from people to be given closer access to the items, just as Fergie had offered people closer access to Prince Andrew.
Unfortunately, too late, I realised the real victims were still the British public. More specifically it was the couple from Leeds who I gave the expensive and inaccurate tour to.
Sadly I didn’t get their full names so this is now a plea; if anyone visited the V&A recently and was given a private tour by someone who may have accidentally called it ‘the VA Clinic’, please get in touch with me for a reimbursement of your £85.