February, 2012
Eye-Love [001]
Mona Lisa Is Gone
DevonTags: anja millen, bandages, black and white, geisha-inspired, nick knight
Prose Poetry: The Scars of Utopia
“ If you keep taking stabs at utopia
sooner or later there will be scars.Suppose there was a thermometer able to measure
contentment. Would you slide it underyour tongue and risk being told you were on par
with a thirteenth century farmer who lostall his teeth in a game of hide and seek? Would you
be tempted to abandon your portable conscience,the remote control that lets you choose who you are
for every occasion? I wish we cared moreabout how we sounded than how we looked.
Instead of primping before mirrors each morning,we’d huddle in echo chambers, practicing our scales.
As a kid, I thought the local amputee was dying in
pieces,that his left arm was leaning against a tree in heaven,
waiting for the rest of him to arrive, as if Godwas dismantling him like a jigsaw puzzle, but now
I understand we’re all missing something. I wishthere were Band Aids for what you don’t know, whisky
breath mints for sober people to fit in at wild parties.There ought to be a Smithsonian for misfits,
where an insomniac’s clammy pillow hangs overa narcoleptic’s drool cup, the teeth of an anorexic
displayed like a white picket fence designedto keep food from trespassing. I wish the White House
was made out of mood ring rock, reflectingthe health of the nation. And an atheist hour
at every church, and needle exchange programs,and haystack exchange programs too, and emotional
baggage thrift stores, a Mount Rushmore for assassins.I’m sick of strip malls and billboards. I dream
of a road lit by people who set themselves on fire,no asphalt, no rest stops, just a bunch of dead grass
with footprints so deep, like a track meet in wet cement.”- “The Scars of Utopia,” Jeffrey McDaniel
BioShock Infinite
This is the debut trailer for the third installment in the BioShock series, which has an American exceptionalism theme and takes place in another alternative-history, this time airborne city called “Columbia” in 1912:
(My favorite part starts around 1:45, with the floating roses.)BioShock Infinite will be released sometime in 2012.
I’m very excited!
Heaven by Felice Fawn
Two incredible images, titled Heaven and Purgatory, respectively, from Felice Fawn:
Tags: amazing makeup, art nudes, felice fawn, medical-themed, otherworldly photography, religious imagery, virgin mary, white hair
Inspired by Brian M. Viveros
A photographic tribute to Brian M. Viveros by Xutomu Photography
Tags: brian m viveros, injuries, medical-themed, military-themed, pinup, retro
Little Framed Tragedies: The Art of Larissa Kulik
Each one of Larissa Kulik’s dark and whimsical photomanipulations is framed in a way that tells a story in that single, frozen image. Strings and ropes are a recurring motif, suggesting bondage and the threads of fate. These snapshots-of-dark-fairy-tales, filled with symbolic objects, are unique in the way they’re composed, and often the boundaries of the picture itself are pointed out and lovingly inscribed and decorated, so that each work is a lushly melancholy story-rich image framing itself. Her framed stories are instantly recognizable.
Tags: dolls, modern fairy tales, photomanipulation, victorian
The Inner Kingdom
This is the video for the song “t” from music project iamamiwhoami (Jonna Lee). It reminds me a little of the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. She has the most expressive hands.
“I suppose the crowns…have something to do with autonomy and the inner kingdom.”
- Chris Con Askew, on religious imagery in his artwork
Another awesome music video, from Fever Ray:
Tags: crown, iamamiwhoami, music videos
Film Review: Antichrist
One of the best movies I’ve seen that came out in the last couple of years is Lars von Trier’s Antichrist from 2009, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It’s almost impossible to describe what this film is like, or “about.” It’s like a slow-moving, beautiful, irresistible nightmare. I would describe it as psychological/surreal arty horror.
The movie is divided into four chapters, titled “Grief,” “Pain (Chaos Reigns),” “Despair (Gynocide),” and “The Three Beggars.”
It tells the story of this nameless couple whose child dies accidentally and who go to a cabin in the woods to cope with the mother’s subsequent trauma. For me, it’s kind of divided into two parts, and it’s weird because these two parts are so different, in terms of what they give away about what the movie is “about.” In the first part, it seems very psychological, as if the movie is really about her psychiatrist-cum-boyfriend trying to help her overcome her anxiety and panic attacks. Nothing that happens in the first part isn’t within the realm of reality. Once they move to the cabin, strange things begin happening, and the movie shifts into an even more surreal, creepy, nightmarish atmosphere. But it never ceases being psychological.
Like I said, the movie is very vague, ambiguous, and doesn’t have a traditional narrative. It takes on this very mystical and surreal bent in the cabin, and gradually builds in horror. It has nothing to do with a literal Antichrist, except for the sort of archaic, cryptic mental atmosphere where such ideas come from.
What I sort of think it’s about is…primal evil. Deep, dark, obscure evil, like the horrific atmosphere surrounding medieval demons. The kind of evil that the woman (a Lilith-like figure) takes on, which seems to originate externally and just exists as evil. Similarly, nature and animals reflect the human happenings and aberrations, like in Macbeth. The bizarre stuff going on with the man and woman is manifested in the outside world, but external forces are also driving her and seeping into her psyche.
The cinematography is absolutely beautiful. It’s so interesting and a breath of fresh air, and even if you’re not that into the subject matter, you should probably check it out just for its visual effect. It’s surreal, eerie, highly atmospheric, and erotic. It has these lovely scenes of surreal, disturbing beauty, like the piles of pale limbs and naked bodies entwined with the tree roots in the promotional image above. Willem Dafoe is great in it, and so is Charlotte Gainsbourg, whom I love. Her character is so crazy and emotional in a very intense, visceral way.
This movie is definitely bizarre, and not for the squeamish, because it has quite graphic sex and some gruesome occurrences (the gore is not visually that over-the-top, just the idea of it is kind of squirmy).
A title like “Antichrist” evokes cheesy ’70s horror films like The Omen, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Antichrist is a gem of subtle, surreal horror, and of artistic, intellectual, and creative filmmaking.
Tags: film reviews, horror movies, lars von trier, religious symbolism, surreal
Precious Creatures: The Art of Ray Caesar
Ray Caesar is one of those artists in the Pop Surreal Movement whose work I’ve seen around for years and years. His medium is quite unique: 3D modeling. And if I were to sum up his subject matter in a few words, I would say something like subverted Victorian morals. His works most often feature young, prepubescent girls, often sexualized, deformed, outfitted with sea-monster tentacles, and in other ways altered from reality. The fetish Batgirl-esque mask is ever present. Women peer from behind fans in Marie Antoinette-style costume, hold parasols in Victorian garb, and sport ’50s-style flip haircuts. His worlds are bright and colorful, the girls vaguely menacing. Macabre and eerie, the works are set in the midst of delicately colored, floral Victorian wallpaper and lush, feminine interiors; the girls are surrounded by objects of taming and domesticity, but they show their teeth and their sinister side.
From Jonathan Levine Gallery Online:
“Working for 17 years in the Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, Ray Caesar documented things such as child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology, and animal research.Using a 3D modeling software called Maya, he builds models and wraps them in painted and manipulated texture maps. The models are set up with an invisible skeleton that allows him to pose each figure in a 3D environment. Digital lights and cameras are added to simulate shadows and reflections, completing the effect of a mysterious and strange alternate world.”
Some of my favorites of his works:
Tags: fetish, historically inspired, innocence/menace, pop surrealism, ray caesar, victorian
Annie Bertram’s “Obsolete Angels” Exhibition
If any of you are in the Berlin area, you should check out Annie Bertram’s upcoming exhibition, for the release of her new photo-art book, The Obsolete Angels, on the 13th. Graham over at Strychnin Gallery was kind enough to send me along this flyer. The great painter Saturno Butto (whose trademark is the combination of religious and medical fetish imagery) will also be in attendance.
Read my interview with Annie Bertram here.
Tags: annie bertram, saturno butto
