Thursday, February 28, 2013

Monster Theory


...America, a society that has created and commodified “ambient fear"-a kind of total fear that saturates day-to-day living, prodding and silently antagonizing but never speaking its own name. This anxiety manifests itself symptomatically as a cultural fascination with monsters-a fixation that is born of the twin desire to name that which is difficult to apprehend and to domesticate (and therefore disempower) that which threatens. And so the monster appears simultaneously as the demonic disemboweler of Slasher and as a wide-eyed, sickeningly cute plush toy for children: velociraptor and Barney.

Note from the author: Portions of this preface and of chapter 1, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” have twice been delivered as part of conference presentations. Invariably the audience giggles at the juxtaposition-so seemingly absurd-of the friendly mascot of PBS (Barney) and the equally but oppositely fictionalized dinosaur who thinks like a human and shreds flesh like the Alien (velociraptor). “That's not funny,” I chide them, knowing full well that it is; what anxiety, then, do we hide by the laughter? What does the dismissal by declaration of absurd mismatch allow us not to have to think about?

- from Monster Theory: Reading Culture, by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen


Sunday, February 24, 2013

deadified







"dead yourself" Top Voted images

Monday, February 18, 2013

black egg

black egg, untitled as of yet, in process in my studio. it is a matte black - the paint is wet still.
*****

century egg

century egg 


instructions for how to make a "ninja" black egg
 
"ninja" black egg (full of pepper and/or dust and/or other blinding things)

kid throwing a "ninja" black egg at a dummy




chalkboard paint eggs

Ukrainian eggs

Ukrainian egg 

Ukrainian egg

watercolored easter egg

marble egg

Paul Noble - Black Egg (silicone) 2004

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

avoid the plague

Avoid the Plague
Rabies and bubonic plague are transmitted by rabbits, bats, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents. Do not handle any animals. Do not fee any animals.
- Philmont: 1999 Guidebook to Adventure; Chimarron, NM; 1998

2/12/13
saw a crow eating a squirrel in the road. it stood on top of it & pulled @ the flesh w/ it's beak.

what is poetry but the common, made uncommon

Sunday, February 10, 2013

The Sexy Dead

previous references: #1 & #2

why did i just now figure out that this calendar and video exist!


Porn of the Dead promo image

zombie dildo off of etsy

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

subtly subverting art history

Claude Monet - Impression: Sunrise (oil on canvas) 1872

Georgia O'Keeffe - Red Canna (oil on canvas) 1923

Marcel Duchamp - Fountain (readymade) 1917

Roy Lichtenstein - Ohh...Alright..., 1964

Johannes Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring (oil on canvas) c. 1665

Mary Cassatt - The Bath (oil on canvas) 1891-1892

Rembrandt van Rijn - St. Peter in Prison (oil on panel) 1631