Celine Dion

Is this grotesque behavior? I'm not really sure what you would call it.

excess II

i also found myself thinking a great deal about the questions of resource distribution over the break. i've tended to do so at most large family gatherings of feasting for the past couple years (much to my family's dismay.) my younger sister and i brought up global warming at thanksgiving dinner, which wasn't appreciated ("but even WITH obama we're approaching the point of positive feedback cycles!" "girls, please")
my tendency to mistake celebration for gluttony was only exasperated by the fact that this year my grandparents decided to take the whole family to DISNEY WORLD!!! i brought my video camera, thinking it would be a gold mine for "candid" shooting... rudely filming people without asking their permission. however, i was overcome by a pervasive sense of something like fear of disney repercussions and only shot from the safety of the balconies of the hotel.
i think disney world is a perfect example of excess. i know this is obvious, but the emphasis is on "perfect." it's perfect because no one questions the system of control, and d-dubs manages to maintain a flawless simulacra of disney reality.
i found this on a disney world chat board:

Protein Spill?
Park: ALL Submitted by: Michelle
Submitted on: 11/14/2003
Confirmed by: BoobBunny

Did you know that vomit is called a protein spill in disney world!
BooboBunny:This is true. If a guest or cast member vomits, a cast member is supposed to call a custodian to clean up a Protien Spill. Just one of the ways Disney preserves the show!!!!




...note the quadruple exclamation points.

i will write more on disney world later. here's some homies enjoying dw's trademark turkey legs.

Excess

A lot of what I believe to be grotesque deals with excess. I've written about it on the blog a couple times before, but I wanted to expand on the idea of excess here and perhaps give more of an idea of my qualms with excess and excessive people.

Before this, I have mentioned excess in reference to a youtube video, and a couple times in class as part of my silkscreen project. As I'm dealing with excess quite a bit in my book project, I've been thinking about what it means to be excessive, and was reminded this past weekend. This Thanksgiving I spent the weekend in Jersey in a house I do not usually spend time in. The dinner was quite delicious and I had a great time, but I was distracted by the large amount of "stuff" lying around. There were so many pillows on the couch that a person couldn't sit down. There were video games lying around unopened. And every couple hours or so, someone would make a mention of Christmas and the gifts stemming from the upcoming holiday season. I find it grotesque that people convince themselves that they need so many things, when millions of people actually need food and water (i.e. victims of the attacks in Nigeria this past weekend). I don't know when or how people will realize that this excessive reaction will end - when people will stop consuming at such a rate that the cost of the consumption is the health of the planet we're living on.

As a side note, a lot of these feelings are a result of me watching Wall E this weekend. You guys should watch it. It's really a good time. But maybe some people find the irony of me talking about excess and watching movies in the same breathe grotesque? Please comment, I'm very interested in the idea that all art may be naturally excessive.

Illustrated Fine Printing: Whittington & Matrix in America

An exhibition at the Center for Book Arts, closes Dec. 6.

Corset Piercings

Corset piercings are really grotesque. And kinda tacky. I like corsets as much as the next person, so I could potentially see the draw, but then I look at pictures of everyone with a corset piercing and shudder.

Memorial Photography

Memorial photography, or the practice of photographing the recently deceased, is something that I think becomes increasingly grotesque as I am further removed from the subject of the image. The images portray death at what seems like the moment it has arrived, and without the emotional attachment or memory of the deceased that the original consumers of the photos may have had, I am put at extreme unease. This death feels far more real than death portrayed in modern news or entertainment media because the love of that person is reflected in not only preserving his/her memory by means of photography, but also the delicate handling of dress and pose.


Paul Frecker Collection

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation

Memento Mori

The Thanatos Archive

John Cage's 4'33"

A show created by the people who have gathered to experience 4 minutes, 33 seconds together. Silence, here, is art because of the background noise, shuffling, coughing, etc. Otherwise, it can be representative of hesitation, disconnection or disagreement. Small talk fills voids, but we all see through that superficiality. It is the source of today's ultimate discomfort.

skinless!

I've been extremely interested in paper sculpture for quite some time, and Peter Callesen is by far one of my favorite discoveries. He has a lot of work that explores skin and the skeleton. Check it out:

http://www.petercallesen.com/

The New gmail Interface

Without changing any functional part of its interface, gmail has managed to rope in Microsoft's top "designers" to all but ruin the formally serene website. The new skins, or "themes," are hideous, many hilariously so (i. e. "Candy"). As an example of how gmail failed where it could have succeeded, take the "Planets" theme. This theme changes are where one is located in the world, and could have been an awesome night sky shot, perhaps pointing at where the planets lie in reference to the viewer on any particular day. But no. The theme is mostly made up of a giant sun, forcing any blip of serenity out of the window. To me, this kind of failed opportunity to make something really awesome is grotesque, especially in an age where the possibilities are really quite endless, no matter how convinced Microsoft seems to be of the opposite.

What Happens When You Stick Your Head in a Hadron Collider...

In a weird technical malfunction, Anatoli Bugorski, 36,a science researcher, stuck his head in front of a particle accelerator, which emits radiation in the form of a proton beam moving at about the speed of light. Afterwards, he experienced "skin on the back of his head and on his face just next to his left nostril peeled away to reveal the path the beam had burned through the skin, the skull, and the brain tissue. The inside of his head continued to burn away: all the nerves on the left were gone in two years, paralyzing that side of his face." Yet he didn't die, and continued to work in science. In a grotesque twist of fate,the left side of his face, which was frozen in the accident has ceased aging and the right side continues to age as normal. WHen "he concentrates, he wrinkles only half his forehead."

Printing

Printing—your life work series (1947) from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

This video isn't grotesque, but it's awesome, because it's about the glory days of the press. Maybe it is a little grotesque because it means that 40 years ago if I were graduating with a degree in printmaking I might actually have "opportunities for advancement" and "work conditions are generally satisfactory", but I don't think that's relevant.

Pod People

James Castle... or is he?

So maybe I'm the only one to think this, but the video about James Castle showed some photos of him, and he looked exactly like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade! Grotesque on multiple levels, because that was one creepy movie and Billy Bob is one creepy dude. Has he ever played a normal character? He's always at least a raging alcoholic. You can do your own comparison below...

THE STRANGERS

I THINK SOMETIMES GIVING TOO MUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION IS GROTESQUE.

GROTESQUE CONFESSIONAL: i'll tell you what's grotesque: having the whole day free and the only thing i finished is my laundry! how grotesque. and to make matters worse, i talked to my cousin on the phone and she said 'im applying to grad school' and she is only a year ahead of me in school. she is so much more motivated than me! ahh! also, she said there is all this olde english stuff on the literature gre! what the heck? i do not know anything in that department! another thing i did today i looked up "the strangers" trailer because my same cousin told me that it was so scary that when the trailer came on she would be angry at how scary it is and want to sue the producers. and it really was scary! i watched it and then i gchatted my friend dre "OH MY GOD THIS STRANGERS TRAILER IS SO SCARY" and she gchatted me "im in class."

everyone keeps embedding videos so i will too. but if you watch this you just better not play it when i'm in the room cause this thing is heinously scary!


seriously, think about it, what if that happened to you? oh my god. i live by myself and my neighbors don't know me, how would they know if the STRANGERS came to get me? i think to myself, how can people be so mean as to just kill random people. it's just not right.



i will probably end up seeing this movie because i am attracted to things that scare me. isn't that grotesque?

Vagina Couch!

This doesn't look very comfortable, but I'd imagine that it would be a nice conversation piece for a living room.

Very Grotesque

Many films by the talented Pennsylvanian duo, The Brothers Quay, come to mind when I think of the grotesque. Their movies have been cited for their "sharp neo gothic edge" as well as their clever use of imagery, bones, and antiquated scenery. Known for animated shorts that have been known as evocative of a "surrealistic, stream of conscious" nightmare, their feature length film, The Institute Benjamenta," also posesses an air of victorian grotesque.

Luis Buñuel Friday

Buñuel was a Spanish film director who made a slew of (mainly surrealist) influential movies in the 30s/40s/50s/60s/70s. A number of them are grotesque in very different ways (links go to youtube):
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, along the lines of Brittany's book, deals with the grotesqueness of the middle class lifestyle.
Un Chien Andalou, made in collaboration with Salvador Dali, is probably his most-referenced film. It has consistent characters, but otherwise seems composed of nightmarish non-sequiturs.
The Land Without Bread is grotesque in a completely non-surreal way -- it's a documentary about extreme poverty in an isolated region of France (Las Hurdes). The narrator's apparent disinterestedness (in the face of oh-the-humanity kind of images) adds another layer.

he can break a coin with his eye

with his EYE! he has more than 260 times my strength! and he has never slept! and he drinks melted butter and eats raw mutton! and he has to have sex fifteen times per day! omg!

REDEMPTION

after that gross post i need to redeem myself with something really cute, here you go:

and then

Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her own face

i can't even look at this picture, i have to close one eye and squint the other one to read the story.

Orientalism, the grotesque of stereotype

Edward Said, in his 1978 book Orientalism, wrote about the stereotyped, paternalistic, and depreciatory ways in which Western culture interpreted, discussed and portrayed Eastern cultures, traditions, and peoples. The term can be used more broadly as a way of discussing how a dominate (or colonial, for Said) culture relates to a less dominate culture. See more on Wikipedia, or better yet, read the book. 

when ugly goes commercial

The Ugly Dolls are big sellers. Why? Do parents etc. see them as an alternative to stereotypical "doll babies," or less gendered dolls? Are they just ugly enough to be cute, or charming? Do they just seem funny and "unique"? I admit, I kind of like them, but can't quite put my finger on why. 

cherries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyvzfgxY0kc


this is full of grotesque factors, although i've watched it so many times i'm sort of desensitized to it now. there's this other r kelly vid which is grotesque but not appropriate.
i think in a way this is a good representation of how real life is disgusting which just a slightly heightened sense of possibility.

I found this guy who turns stuffed animals inside out. I really enjoyed them. On some he's attached wires and tubes making them look like subjects of some sort of cruel/demented/torturous child's experiment. This seems to be the main thing that he does, but some of his other work is just disgusting, and I can't really tell if he means it to be or not. I thought that Manya would really enjoy the piece under the link that says "neon" on the main page. Here's the link to the site:

http://www.kentrogowski.com

Fast Track to Fame

Selfkiss

Wasting time on the internet, I found this series of photographs. They're all manipulated images of people kissing themselves.

http://www.pupsam.com/

Grotesque Prom Dresses

I got this email forwarded by a friend of the ugliest prom dresses. Sadly, I deleted it, so I was only able to find an abbreviated version online, but these are disgusting dresses. I especially like the Winnie the Pooh one.

http://www.minglecity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=440

book arts events

Two upcoming artist book events of interest (the first is this weekend -- sorry for the late post):

Editions/Artists' Book Fair in NYC: http://www.eabfair.com/

The Hybrid Book: Intersection and Intermedia international book arts conference and fair at UArts this summer: http://www.hybridbook.org/