Kristina Felix
Other People's Love Stories, 2008
video
3 min. 5 sec.

catalog essay by Deborah Spivak:

We have heard the tale countless times: boy & girl meet, fall in love & live happily ever after. This story of love has become an archetypal myth, entrenched within our zeitgeist. We expect to read it in books, we seek films that depict it in a compelling way & we listen as others retell their stories, knowing well how they will end. We also know that, in reality, the story does not exactly happen as scripted. Playing upon this expectation, Kristina Felix knows that we will be drawn to the narratives told in her video, Other People's Love Stories (2008), that we will watch it, see the ending we expect & be satisfied with the result.

Other People's Love Stories consists of four video segments following the same format of an interview-style recounting of everyday tales of love. The protagonists of each segment sit in front of the camera & recall the pivotal moments of their ultimate romance. Punctuated by scrolling New York Times logos & flashes of blue sky, the video follows a clear stylistic type seen often on daytime cable. Upon the conclusion of the video, the viewer considers the artist's role in the work. The video causes the viewer to suspend the reality of the art gallery & enter the world the world of seemingly non-fictional documentation. With an affable story-telling style, Felix establishes a relationship with the viewer that does not set her up as an artist. Spoken in vernacular & performed with realistic acting, Felix ascribes verisimilitude to the work that is, in actuality, quite artificial.

Felix deliberately uses The New York Times as a backdrop for her fictionalization in Other People's Love Stories. Because these narratives are so cliched, their juxtaposition with a trusted information source, The New York Times, asks the viewer to reconsider the concept of news. After downloading videos from the "Style" section, Felix transcribes the script & records herself within the woman's role, replicating the heroin's tale down to the minute details of body positioning, pauses & nonverbal utterances, Felix's imitation of life imitating art is so ordinary, it appears unusual. Deliberately plagiarizing a narration of love, she asks the viewer to question the oxymoron of "true story."

Taking advantage of computer programming, Felix assumes a heavy hand in the production of her work. The addition of still shots of the blue sky seen out of her studio window adds an overt artist's hand. The contrived production hints at the central role of modern technology in the twenty-first-century love story.

Felix admits that this work stems from her desire to be loved & her exploration of the institution of love. The perfect couples with their saccharin stories repulse the viewer, yet compel interest through envy. Felix is also drawn to these people & their stories, entirely outside of her experience. Furthermore, the institutionalization of love compels her desire to conform to the cultural expectation that a 25-year-old female is in the prime position to be loved. Other People's Love Stories exposes the fault of this notion, the idea that the all-American love story is just that: a story. Through the artifice of her process, the triteness of her production techniques & the predictability of the anecdotes themselves, Felix shows how the telling of a love story can counteract the intimacy of love.