4. Exploring Playful Violence

Playful violence / irony is demonstrated in Pipilotti Rist's EVER IS OVER ALL.

I was intrigued by the effect that EVER IS OVER ALL had on me as a viewer. It made me laugh, it had me confused, and it left me with many questions. The piece could be described as surreal and uncanny due to the mixed messages.

I wanted to explore ideas that would evoke similar responses.

I liked the idea of combining weapons with nature (specifically flowers, inspired by P.R.) for several reasons:

1. Nature can be seen as weak and delicate (e.g. gentle flowers, harmless, beautiful), so it would be ridiculous to see weak parts of it used as powerful weapons. Viewers could laugh or be confused.

2. Nature is actually very powerful (earthquakes, tornados, volcanos, tsunamis, wind), so it would be interesting to display the weakest parts of nature (flowers / insects / animals / plants) as strongly as the most powerful parts, or vice versa.

3.  Many of the weakest parts of nature are secretly incredibly powerful, even if they are physically delicate (poisonous plants / mushrooms), which is an interesting idea that is often looked over. It might seem ridiculous, but a lot of delicate parts of nature actually SHOULD be feared.

I started sketching.

I enjoy using humans in my art, so I decided to explore this pose which explores a woman's expression.

I found that it explored femininity, as she appears helpless, in the hands of a man. Although feminism is not what I am trying to explore here, it is just another way of viewing the piece. 

I wanted to capture the moment that a "thug" is holding a "weapon" to a helpless woman's throat.

The flower is in place of a blade.

It is ironic and strange because all of the elements are familiar (flower, woman, hands) but the piece is still surreal and uncanny.



The UNCANNY is something that I would like to explore, because it is fitting to the type of art that I enjoy creating, and I find that it brings many questions to the table of both the creator and the viewer.




The next sketch I created was more industrial, and more blatantly metaphorical than the image above. The piece is almost half and half - harsh and gentle - artificial and natural. It is split in two, which could almost be seen as cliche.

When viewed, an older male viewer said that it reminded him of a period in the 1960's, where hippies would protest by placing flowers in the barrels of policemen's guns. 

I enjoyed this metaphor because of the idea of gentle violence, again, or peaceful protest.

Although, I wanted to return to using humans in my work, and I found inspiration in Pipilotti's use of projection / shadows.

I found the idea of using silhouettes interesting, because it removes the identity from the human.

Also, it does not subtract from the busy background, and gives the piece multiple dimensions, multiple features to look at and analyse.

I attempted to combine all of the features above (playful violence, nature, vibrant colour and silhouettes) into the piece below.

I took inspiration from EVER IS OVER ALL.

The silhouette is of a girl, swinging a flower in order to smash a screen of glass.

I projected this piece onto a large white wall, and received critique and comments from my peers.

Discovery and development:

I am interested in keeping digital, and possibly projecting pieces of art to retain the digital quality. Digital pieces do not look quite as successful when printed, unless they are printed professionally, which I cannot afford. Also, the projection ties back in with Pipilotti's use of projection, and allows the possibility of shadows from viewer integration.

I will be experimenting further with SILHOUETTES, and will be exploring the work of Kara Walker.