I’m currently attempting to write my first operetta - both the music and the lyrics. Though it’ll be performed by animatronic puppets, I sing the music myself. I’m quite sure this is a questionable idea, as I’m not a great singer. Yet to me it make some sense; the puppets are made using casts of my own face and they sing about the creation ánd management of their public persona.
The puppets portray financial speculators during the early modern period, a time when the financial sector began to emerge. For speculators at the time, managing one’s public appearance, immaculate looks and charming personality was of utmost importance. Spending so much time to appear virtuous, trustworthy and economically viable, of course makes a lot of sense while you’re trying to sell new, speculative financial products that in the end only really exist in the imagination.
This also feels somewhat close to my own artistic practice, I (like many of us) often respond to open calls, write applications and try to convince people of some kind of investment. I make a promise, try to spark the imagination, paint how wonderful it’s all going to be. I tell the committee/curator/oh-so-important-art-per- son that I’ll provide value in the future. It’s urgent, it needs to happen. Not for me, not for you but... because of something... social.... or whatever.
Doing this sometimes depresses me and when it doesn’t, it makes me nervous. So I like to think of it as performing some kind of drag, creating a persona, adorning myself, not with sequins and wigs, but clever words and discourses. I sometimes think of adding the word urgent to an application as the final touch of lurid eye-liner completing my look.
