Winning Mentality, 2010
Artist’s Book
Hardcover, 7×7 inches (18×18cm), 96 pages(More information at the Tate Collection of Artists' Books)
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Artist’s Book
Hardcover, 7×7 inches (18×18cm), 96 pages(More information at the Tate Collection of Artists' Books)
Winning Mentality charts the remarkable life of Victor Starr, a fictional character trapped in the prison of success.
From cheerleading to digital background calibration, free throwing to industrial maintenance, volunteering to schooling, no aspect of everyday life is safe from the tenets of competition and individualism. Allied with the ubiquity of the camera, awards exist to be photographed, their ceremonial rituals disseminated across the internet to as large an audience as possible, regardless of the obscurity of the awards themselves.
Having trawled thousands of these social records, Winning Mentality reinterprets these events by superimposing Victor Starr onto a selection of win
ners’ bodies. Victor’s apparent ambivalence subverts the conventional gestures expected of winners and hints at a deeper malaise in the culture itself, leading to a questioning of the purpose of these rituals.
From cheerleading to digital background calibration, free throwing to industrial maintenance, volunteering to schooling, no aspect of everyday life is safe from the tenets of competition and individualism. Allied with the ubiquity of the camera, awards exist to be photographed, their ceremonial rituals disseminated across the internet to as large an audience as possible, regardless of the obscurity of the awards themselves.
Having trawled thousands of these social records, Winning Mentality reinterprets these events by superimposing Victor Starr onto a selection of win
ners’ bodies. Victor’s apparent ambivalence subverts the conventional gestures expected of winners and hints at a deeper malaise in the culture itself, leading to a questioning of the purpose of these rituals.
