Wyrvynn: detail
Kinderfresser
2000. Mixed Media. Solo Show
2000. Mixed Media. Solo Show
Why toys? Toys are energetic and relate to the imaginative world. A toy transformed into another object immediately engages and disarms the viewer so they will move in close, then it is too late. The piece has engaged them and will disturb them.
In creating with toys I bridge a gap in time, span the adult back to childhood, yet encompassing childhood as an adult with all the misapprehensions that engenders. The childhood I refer to is that time when the world is of a rational order that allows the natural order of the irrational. Childhood is the world of human consciousness when the brain is still developing and the mind cannot yet grasp certain concepts, and so order is made in a most peculiar manner.
The Kinderfresser was one of two MFA shows I presented. The show filled the gallery with forms created from altered toys. It was a participatory showing, where the patron/player must remove their shoes and walk up a podium skinned in stuffed animal hides. Atop the podium was a pulpit with two identical romance novels (Destiny's Temptress) on either side of a remote control unit skinned in doll faces and stuffed animal hides. Before driving the 6 chromosomobiles in the colloseum they had to read aloud from selected naughty passages earmarked and highlighted. Points were scored in the colloseum depending on where the chromosomobiles clustered and dogpiled, as they were all on the same remote frequency. The covers of the romance novels determined scoring. For the score to count, they had to place their hand on the "Virginal and Unsullied" copy of Destiny's Temptress and make a sound that affirms their reproductive vitality- i.e. a "sex noise".
A local film maker shot a documentary of this show while installed. The short film had a soundtrack laid in that makes it unable to stream here.
at the bottom of the page is an abstract of the concepts in the final installation
In creating with toys I bridge a gap in time, span the adult back to childhood, yet encompassing childhood as an adult with all the misapprehensions that engenders. The childhood I refer to is that time when the world is of a rational order that allows the natural order of the irrational. Childhood is the world of human consciousness when the brain is still developing and the mind cannot yet grasp certain concepts, and so order is made in a most peculiar manner.
The Kinderfresser was one of two MFA shows I presented. The show filled the gallery with forms created from altered toys. It was a participatory showing, where the patron/player must remove their shoes and walk up a podium skinned in stuffed animal hides. Atop the podium was a pulpit with two identical romance novels (Destiny's Temptress) on either side of a remote control unit skinned in doll faces and stuffed animal hides. Before driving the 6 chromosomobiles in the colloseum they had to read aloud from selected naughty passages earmarked and highlighted. Points were scored in the colloseum depending on where the chromosomobiles clustered and dogpiled, as they were all on the same remote frequency. The covers of the romance novels determined scoring. For the score to count, they had to place their hand on the "Virginal and Unsullied" copy of Destiny's Temptress and make a sound that affirms their reproductive vitality- i.e. a "sex noise".
A local film maker shot a documentary of this show while installed. The short film had a soundtrack laid in that makes it unable to stream here.
at the bottom of the page is an abstract of the concepts in the final installation
Kinderfresser Portrait. Dismembered dollies, rocket.
X-Chromosomobile: Auto-Erotic Machine. Skinned in baby-doll. Car's stunt is to flip onto its back.
Y-Chromosomobile: Auto-Erotic Machine. Skinned in Teddy-Bear fur and baby-doll. Car's stunt is to spin/screw in place.
X & Y Chromosomobiles: Auto-Erotic Players.
Colosseum of romance novels, bridesmaid dresses, auto-erotic cars. The Wyrvyn manifests above...in the gallery installation a monkey in a wedding dress floats above the Wyrvyn, with upskirt projections of Romance novels. Players drive the cars for points from a podium, analogous to a mating ritual- such as reading aloud selected naughty passages from a romance novel.
Chromosomobiles on Romance-Novel Colosseum.
X-Chromosomobile on track of romance novels.
Wyrvyn in progress.
Wyrvyn detail.
Hecate. Foam, dolly scalps, steel, doll arms, self-help books, diet books, projected daytime soaps on screen upon back of dolly-scalp head.
Hecate detail. Rubberized foam, baby arms, steel.
Dino-ball. Toy dinosaurs and dolly face remnants with flip-eyes.
Huggy-Bear.
Valentine.
Playbills. These disappeared from the conservative Utah art department as fast as I could print them.
Playbill. address line ends with "Bring Protection"
Recombinant Toys of the Kinderfresser
( A play on genetic engineering, relating to my concern with the structures of the subconscious.)
* “Exploit the masses.” -Jeff Koons
* When reason dreams, monsters are born.” -Goya
* …a place of lucid dread infused unique and sharp-edged modern fears. –Hughes on Max Ernst
* “Surrealism…the liberation from constraints- logic, morality, and the rest.” -Andre Breton
* ”Nineteenth-century Romanticism,whose core was the idea that mental derangement gave access to a whole ‘dark side’ of the mind, the locus of painful but irrefutable truths about society,human nature, and especially art.” -Hughes, The Shock Of The New
* “Breton wrote, claiming that the perception of beauty belonged to the same order of experience as fear or sexual desire/ there was nothing intellectual in it, it could not be duplicated, only found.”
* “The Surrealists were interested in the art of children, which they saw as one of the most generous outlets of the uncensored, polymorphous self.” -Hughes
* “The Doll was infinitely pornographic…” Hughes on HansBellmer
* “Devilish Humor: Psychic defense against boundary breakdown and a fortification to help with disturbing emotions on the frontiersof self.” -Robert Arneson
* “Without a sadistic understanding of an incontestably thundering and torrential nature, there could be no revolutionaries, there could only be a revolting utopian sentimentality.” -G. Bataille
* “Since Love takes beauty as its object,… Love itself cannot be beautiful…Love is not good or beautiful.” -Socrates (sentenced to death for “Corrupting the Young,” among other charges)
* “Being a healthy and productive member of society can only be achieved if one is a satisfied, sexually functioning, member of society…unfortunately the damage has already been done.”– Mike Kelly
* “You can’t be more horrific than life itself.” -Francis Bacon
Why toys? Toys are energetic and relate to the imaginative world. A toy transformed into another object immediately engages and disarms the viewerso they will move in close, then it is too late. The piece has engaged them and will disturb them.
In creating with toys I bridge a gap in time, span the adult back to the childhoodof which they live in fear. The childhood I refer to is that time when the world is of a rational order that allows the natural order of the irrational. Childhood is the world of human consciousness when the brain is still developing and the mind cannot yet grasp certain concepts, and so order is made in a most peculiar manner.
There is a leap in understanding the physical world that occurs in childhood called Conversion of Mass (COM). Prior to COM equal volumes of a substance can change in volume depending on their shape. If equal volumes are represented in a tall form and a short form, say a pint of water poured into a tall pipette and a pint of water poured into a low bowl, the child observes that a pint was poured into each container, yet when poured into the different shaped containers the child will perceive the mass to change. The tall container will be a larger amount than the short one. Explaining how it works will not help them grasp their conceptual flaw ( you once thought this way) .
Another such shift in awareness may or may not occur. It can first occur in the mid to late teens, and if not then, it will manifest in the 40s or possibly not at all. This is the level of Ethical Thought. This is the individual's ability to stand outside the groupthink of society. It is the birth of personal conscience. It is the difference between those who follow The Rules and so believe they are good, and those who know goodness. It is the first step toward the ideals of Romanticism and Surrealism. Explaining how it works will not help (you may have yet to reach this one…in the past few decades Americanculture has seen a dramatic reduction in this developmental stage).
Why do I want to disturb? - Because as asociety and as individuals we are ill-prepared for the Shadow we cast. "Through mountain climbing in the dead of night without anyartificial light I awakened an awareness of the darkness, darkness not as thecalm of starlit night, but the wild and unknown place beyond the knowable." (C.G. Yung) In the deep forest beyond midnight, all becomes shadow and an intuited aspect of self that is of that darkness moves within the darkness of the self. This ancient presence of darkness is a constant in the realm of nature.The Romaticists would percieve that I work with the Shadow in a false sense: the irrational realm of Nightmare where terror of the unknown, helplessness of ignorance, and the confusion of ego-disintegration become states of transcendance.
The Shadow lives in the time before Conversion of Mass is grasped, lives as a disturbing doppleganger, an awkward invisible friend, a living Grimm's FairyTale pointing to vast forces of nature that we missaprehend and so are empty of truth.
The KINDERFRESSER
The envoy of the Shadow is my intended form- a boogyman of sorts. The Norwegian form is Kinderfresser: child-devourer. In my work the Kinderfresser sees any age person as a child. There are still many leaps in understanding unmapped as clarified stages of development, stages that, to the Kinderfresser, are more obvious than COM, and more intricate than Ethical Thought. The maturity missing from humanity is what the Kinderfresser offers; a terrible experiential knowledge and paradigm shift as far removed from what we know and are as the adult from the child
“I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and Ifeel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older hasserved no purpose at all.” – Rilke
( A play on genetic engineering, relating to my concern with the structures of the subconscious.)
* “Exploit the masses.” -Jeff Koons
* When reason dreams, monsters are born.” -Goya
* …a place of lucid dread infused unique and sharp-edged modern fears. –Hughes on Max Ernst
* “Surrealism…the liberation from constraints- logic, morality, and the rest.” -Andre Breton
* ”Nineteenth-century Romanticism,whose core was the idea that mental derangement gave access to a whole ‘dark side’ of the mind, the locus of painful but irrefutable truths about society,human nature, and especially art.” -Hughes, The Shock Of The New
* “Breton wrote, claiming that the perception of beauty belonged to the same order of experience as fear or sexual desire/ there was nothing intellectual in it, it could not be duplicated, only found.”
* “The Surrealists were interested in the art of children, which they saw as one of the most generous outlets of the uncensored, polymorphous self.” -Hughes
* “The Doll was infinitely pornographic…” Hughes on HansBellmer
* “Devilish Humor: Psychic defense against boundary breakdown and a fortification to help with disturbing emotions on the frontiersof self.” -Robert Arneson
* “Without a sadistic understanding of an incontestably thundering and torrential nature, there could be no revolutionaries, there could only be a revolting utopian sentimentality.” -G. Bataille
* “Since Love takes beauty as its object,… Love itself cannot be beautiful…Love is not good or beautiful.” -Socrates (sentenced to death for “Corrupting the Young,” among other charges)
* “Being a healthy and productive member of society can only be achieved if one is a satisfied, sexually functioning, member of society…unfortunately the damage has already been done.”– Mike Kelly
* “You can’t be more horrific than life itself.” -Francis Bacon
Why toys? Toys are energetic and relate to the imaginative world. A toy transformed into another object immediately engages and disarms the viewerso they will move in close, then it is too late. The piece has engaged them and will disturb them.
In creating with toys I bridge a gap in time, span the adult back to the childhoodof which they live in fear. The childhood I refer to is that time when the world is of a rational order that allows the natural order of the irrational. Childhood is the world of human consciousness when the brain is still developing and the mind cannot yet grasp certain concepts, and so order is made in a most peculiar manner.
There is a leap in understanding the physical world that occurs in childhood called Conversion of Mass (COM). Prior to COM equal volumes of a substance can change in volume depending on their shape. If equal volumes are represented in a tall form and a short form, say a pint of water poured into a tall pipette and a pint of water poured into a low bowl, the child observes that a pint was poured into each container, yet when poured into the different shaped containers the child will perceive the mass to change. The tall container will be a larger amount than the short one. Explaining how it works will not help them grasp their conceptual flaw ( you once thought this way) .
Another such shift in awareness may or may not occur. It can first occur in the mid to late teens, and if not then, it will manifest in the 40s or possibly not at all. This is the level of Ethical Thought. This is the individual's ability to stand outside the groupthink of society. It is the birth of personal conscience. It is the difference between those who follow The Rules and so believe they are good, and those who know goodness. It is the first step toward the ideals of Romanticism and Surrealism. Explaining how it works will not help (you may have yet to reach this one…in the past few decades Americanculture has seen a dramatic reduction in this developmental stage).
Why do I want to disturb? - Because as asociety and as individuals we are ill-prepared for the Shadow we cast. "Through mountain climbing in the dead of night without anyartificial light I awakened an awareness of the darkness, darkness not as thecalm of starlit night, but the wild and unknown place beyond the knowable." (C.G. Yung) In the deep forest beyond midnight, all becomes shadow and an intuited aspect of self that is of that darkness moves within the darkness of the self. This ancient presence of darkness is a constant in the realm of nature.The Romaticists would percieve that I work with the Shadow in a false sense: the irrational realm of Nightmare where terror of the unknown, helplessness of ignorance, and the confusion of ego-disintegration become states of transcendance.
The Shadow lives in the time before Conversion of Mass is grasped, lives as a disturbing doppleganger, an awkward invisible friend, a living Grimm's FairyTale pointing to vast forces of nature that we missaprehend and so are empty of truth.
The KINDERFRESSER
The envoy of the Shadow is my intended form- a boogyman of sorts. The Norwegian form is Kinderfresser: child-devourer. In my work the Kinderfresser sees any age person as a child. There are still many leaps in understanding unmapped as clarified stages of development, stages that, to the Kinderfresser, are more obvious than COM, and more intricate than Ethical Thought. The maturity missing from humanity is what the Kinderfresser offers; a terrible experiential knowledge and paradigm shift as far removed from what we know and are as the adult from the child
“I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and Ifeel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older hasserved no purpose at all.” – Rilke