Justification of artwork:

The piece that I have created and photographed is based on the book Cosmopolis and emphasizes the point that perfection in and of itself is frail and unfulfilling. Erick Packer is young, rich, brilliant, physically strong and an overall embodiment of perfection. When Eric bets wrong on the yen and loses, he loses his perfection and thus wants to have a grand fall from grace. Page 201 (in iBooks, not the physical copy) emphasizes this theme when Eric “sat in the car borrowing yen and watching his fund’s numbers sink into the mist on several screens.” The house of cards represents “perfect” life; empty and frail. Money represents what citizens of a capitalistic economy build their lives around. The playing cards emphasize the gambles and risk taken to succeed. The fire is the inevitable fall.