link to video: https://youtu.be/0RojuzNo-Lc
I have just shot the music video above for the track Luxury Kills by Annie Bea feat. da7 which is released this week. The song and this video show the trappings of wealth and the restrictive nature of success . The photographs this week all run along a similar theme and used a desaturation technique to highlight the intentional separation by the haves from the have nots. They use lavish purchases as a way to create distance between them & those that can’t afford what they can. They act as if they might get ‘infected’ if they get too close to poverty. Wealth divides. That’s the point of it.
And yet, this process does not achieve them happiness so they spend more and more to satisfy a feeling that can’t be satiated. It is a hole that cannot be filled. A thirst that cannot be quenched. Enough really is never enough.
Expensive tastes often become a prison as the top end of society can’t be happy unless they have the best of everything. They become dependent on it and can no longer accept average or normal. It just won’t do. Once you have the good stuff you can’t go back. You’re essentially fucked. You will have to forever live within luxurious means or suffer the consequences. Accidentally got an Uber deluxe home the other night and the seats were so friggin comfy you felt like each tiny bit of your body was being supported and my headrest had a massage function and now everything is shit so I am now less content than I was before I ever got into in the first place. And this is what we think will make us happy?
For the video I, erm, “appropriated” images from the RichKidsofInstagram website and it was sad how repetitive and identical everyone’s purchases and posts were. It seems once you get to a point when you have more dosh than you will ever need you blow it on the same cliched symbols of wealth and status: yachts, private jets, helicopters, large quantities of champagne, stupidly expensive watches, designer brands and high end sports cars. And in 3 years of posts (yes, I went through that many) no-one deviates from these 7 basic avenues of expenditure. They are all stuck in the same loop and don’t seem to know how to get out.
They are forced to barricade themselves behind these status symbols, in fear their identities will disappear altogether if they don’t. They become incarcerated by the displays of their own wealth when the intention was to break free of the confines of normal society but they just end up in another prison. A fancy prison admittedly, but a prison nonetheless. And this is what people aspire to. Doesn’t really look that appealing when you look at it in this context and there is, in many ways, more cause for pity than envy. Remember…Luxury Kills.
Luxury Kills by Annie Bea feat. da7 was released this week. You can buy the 7inch from RoughTrade or download from iTunes.
(p.s) The video was made for £0.00 as a statement against excessive expenditure in creative projects. And there was no money either so we didn’t really have a choice but that’s just details…
