This afternoon’s studio visit involved a studio with easels in, which I began exploring as a frame on which to exhibit these.

(ig comment: I love how they’re both cradling eachother/cradling itself)

Some quite strong associations sprung to the surface for me – torture and crucifixion – as I began to drape and tie the hot water bottles to the vertical wooden structure. It sounds forcefully symbolic, but I genuinely felt bad attaching these to it, using their own gravity and some wire from the puppetry experimentation.

It was more sad but less guilt-inducing for the spray-painted version, which felt resigned and dying already in its flaky floppiness. The bright rubber initial version, filled with foam, was firmer and so felt like it was more robust to this inflicted procedure, yet its slightly friendly comical colours, and the fact that I’ve had it for longer contributed to me feeling more guilty.

Together they feel more comforted together, casually holding onto each other, maybe playfully leaning off this wooden structure.

My emotional reaction has genuinely surprised me. Right now, looking at the images, I’m filled with thoughts of dystopian fantasies where humans destroy and exhibit the remains of the robots they themselves created to serve humanity. (Far Verona springs to mind) A paradox, a painful hypocrisy. More Frankenstein vibes. Hmm.

Easel interaction / Claire Bath / Intermedia by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0