Star

Star

Hiroyuki Matsukage’s interactive installation Star focuses on celebrity adulation and the popularity of karaoke in Japan and elsewhere. The sea of girls’ faces in the photographic element of the work expresses both the population density of Japan and the extent to which the desire to be or to adulate a ‘star’ is important to the generation of women depicted. These women also comprise the audience for the Gallery visitors who step up to the karaoke microphone. When a Gallery visitor interacts with the microphone by speaking, singing or shouting, the crowd breaks out in applause and cheering, interrupting the person’s performance and fulfilling their desire to be adored. It is a wry comment on the karaoke phenomenon that reveals the comedic and fleeting nature of do-it-yourself stardom. Matsukage often explores issues of performance in his work; the way in which people perform for a camera, the tendency of photography to produce clichéd characters, public desire for celebrity, and the willingness to act like one’s celebrity heroes.

Star was first exhibited at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 2004 as part of the exhibition Mediarena: contemporary art from Japan.