"Blood Bath PlayStation"

Foam core swords, crossbows, laser guns and pistols litter the floor begging to be played with. Fake blood lays spattered and pooling into puddles on the plastic sheets covering the ground. The floor is lit with blue tinted fluorescent lights reminiscent of the film "Tron". In similar fashion to that radically innovative film, "Blood Bath PlayStation" creates a world imbued with artificiality and saccharine sterility. A hyper real sensation attracts the participant to don the plastic booties available to the viewer and enter the space of the artwork. Stamping around in the ridiculously sticky fake blood, (Bruce Campbell's Karo syrup recipe), participants are encouraged to take possession of the white weapons and pretend they're engaged in gun fights or swashbuckling battle. Like a children's home made version of Lazer Tag, players can stalk their enemies and take part in a game that resembles the high tech inventions of virtual reality or other sci-fi ideas, yet it obviously isn't. The imagination of the spectator and/or participant is required to play this low budget game. "Blood Bath PlayStation" is like a mock up for a high tech game or movie, something like the velcro ping pongs attached to actors to recreate their movements for an animation, or perhaps a model for a game in it's experimental stage. Whatever it is, it's low tech realism is clearly balanced by it's desire to become or mimic something more futuristic. In many ways what the artwork resembles is the idea of the Holodeck.

The Holodeck was first portrayed in the "Star Trek" animated series in the 1970's, and later the Marvel comics' "The Uncanny X-men" had one, so I decided to make one of my own. Inspired by this simulated reality facility, I created the "Blood Bath PlayStation" to create a gory blood splattered battle space. This recreation room for holographic simulations was created to portray the antiseptic cleanliness that imbues the violent media of our culture, (especially video games and movies), with its deceptive cleanliness and pristine beauty. Our experience of pain and the chaos of war has been depicted by our recreational media in such an abstract way that many of us have become comfortably numb to the reality of such violence. The terrifying destruction made capable by modern weaponry has become abstract to the minds of most first world citizens. When the First Gulf War began in 1990, for the first time Americans were shown videos of highly technological air strikes, at once de-humanizing the enemy and erasing the gruesome reality of war by fetishizing the capabilities of the new technology. Some have said that the First Gulf War looked like the advertising campaign of an arms dealer showing off the effectiveness of his wares.

Video games today are soaked with the blood of incredibly realistic death and violent murder. For example, in the game Grand Theft Auto, it's possible to kill a prostitute with a screwdriver. This is not an indictment of violence in media, but simply a reflection of how incredibly white washed the brutality of death has come to be portrayed by our society, with a nod to it's avid consumption by young people. Our desensitization to violence is the theme of "Blood Bath PlayStation", how the beautiful implements of war have become the toys that we love playing with the most.

"Blood Bath PlayStation" is an example of how we have become indifferent to our natural feelings of horror and revulsion. In fact we have grown so enamored by playing toy soldier, it seems obvious why America is determined to maintain it's military supremacy for many years to come. It should come as no surprise that many young recruits into the military have honed their skills playing war games, and often these games are what inspired their interest into eventually becoming soldiers in the first place.

"Army of Darkness"

     Yes, from the title of Sam Raimi's horror comedy of '93.  No Bruce Cambell here though to stop this horde of zombies dragging themselves and bleeding down Broadway oblivious that they're in a parade.  This army of Darkness is made up of thirteen actresses all wearing identical schoolgirl uniforms. The zombies are loosely based on the character Sadako from the movie the Ring.  With long black hair hanging down in front of their faces and their heads all  bent sharply at the neck.  The actresses slowly moved as a pack of diseased and decaying undead  schoolgirls all hungry for human flesh!  Moaning and confused the once cute and sexually charged girls staggered their way down the street as living dead.Their faces looked like the haunted or posessed, with pieces of flesh dangling. Ambling down the street awkwardly and with difficulty, this mob surely struck fear in the heart!  Grunting, Groaning and bleeding, with limbs falling off on the way, Army of Darkness was quite a spectacle!

     The idea behind this performance is the depiction of the femme fatale.  How something beautiful and highly sexualized, (like a japanese schoolgirl)  can also be a dangerous instrument of death. The unbridaled hunger for flesh is a pretty obvious metaphor.  The rotten limbs and bloody bodies also speak of the raw visceral aspects of human physicality.  Where once there were an attractive gaggle of giggling schoolgirls, there is now a grotesqe gang of monsters to be feared.  Attraction and Repulsion are opposite yet similar somehow. Is this zombie disease their true nature in fact?  It's funny that in Japanese the word for cute and scary is nearly the same, only a slight pronunciation difference.  Feminine sexuality is so often depicted (by males at least) as all powerful and something to be feared.  I think this is a natural reaction!  My intention was for people to reflect on life and death.  What is the meaning of  "undead".  Is someone with a terminal ilness "undead" or what about someone in a meaningless relationship? Perhaps the cult like obsession with youth and school uniforms is itself a disease.  How many of us drag our rotten bodies through the streets hungry for flesh?!  The inherent violence of sexuality is what interests me.  Despite the horrorshow make up and dark subject matter, I saw this performance as ultimately uplifting, slightly comedic, and lighthearted entertainment.  It was so fun to make this performance at the Deitch Parade.