Phil Collins Turner Prize Talk at Tate - The New Melodrama

2006 Turner Prize nominee Phil Collins' talk at the Tate (1hr 38mins), on Shady Lane Productions, his ongoing research project on the social and personal ramifications of reality TV.

Featuring; A former 'Wife Swap' contestant, talking essentially on class warfare and the 'attempted annihilation of her family;' A researcher on the mutual exploitation of those creating the show, and those participating in it; A 'live cosmetic surgery' TV star on how she now needs glasses and has metal fangs as a result; And Professor Thomas Elsaesser, on the melodramatic notion of 'Serial Suffering' - asserting your virtue through ongoing strife, trauma as a major part of contemporary self-identity, and how "The citizen in us is now competing with the consumer in us." He goes on to describe, turning trauma into narratives through Oprah, and 'harvesting misery.'

Another Phil Collins piece, 'They Short Horses Don't They,' is also on view at Tate Britain , through 04-02-07. More images of Phil Collin's work, here, at Tanya Bonakdar. A Guardian article on the Shady Lane project, here.