Nathalie Djurberg's
'Claymations'.
Swedish artist
Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both
terrifyingly disturbing and artlessly sweet.
The new works created
for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that
is natural goes awry.
She exposes the innate
fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of
emotions.
Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.
(http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg)
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'Experiment' (2009) Venice Biennale
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Research Djurberg's work in order to answer the following questions;
1.
What do you understand by the word
'claymation'?
Claymation, a general term used for Clay Animations, is one of the many forms of stop motion animations that use
clay as its medium. The term being coined by its creator, Will Vinton, the
technique behind it is similar to any form of traditional stop motion, where
the object (which could be of anything) is slowly moved between each individual
photographed frame to help create a convincing illusion of movement when the
frames are being played in a continuous sequence. Clay motion uses that same
style but uses clay (specifically Plasticine or any form of moldable material)
as its animated piece for character and background.
2.
What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden
of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?
The term “Surrealistic Garden of Eden” is made out of two
meanings. surrealistic, relating to the idea of surrealism (a cultural
movement/style from the 20th century
that uses subconscious imagery to create art without the intention of
reason or comprehension), focuses the idea of having a dreamlike state or
quality, and for that itself uses the similar idea of surrealism to help
question the image for what it actually is. While the Garden of Eden, a famous story from the old testament of the Christian
bible, tells of how god had forbidden the first humans, Adam and Eve, to eat
the apple form the tree of knowledge during their stay in the garden of god,
but disobey, therefore gaining knowledge and reason, so they were banished forever.
Being the opposite of surrealism, this term focus on the ideas reason and
logic, and so their combinations help show the kind of twisted if not distorted idea that she has portray, and how they would be opposite from how the garden
was meant to look.
As for “All that is natural goes awry”, the term
Awry means "in a turned or twisted position or direction", while the
previous words, which most likely symbolize the idea of living and just being
"normal" these terms together most likely give use the meaning that
all things in life are not always real or what they seem and that they could
sometimes end up wrong or bad, even death.
3.
What are the 'complexity of emotions' that
Djurberg confronts us with?
The different kinds of emotion that she
tries to convey in her work are of what we consider as "negative
emotions". While we naturally view flowers as beautiful and pretty in
normal condition, the works she portrays in her piece “Towering Clay
Flowers" shows the obvious, negative emotion of anger, pain, fear,
sadness, and sometimes pleasure and even death. They are portrayed in her work
mainly to help confront us of the different kinds of perspective that exist
within the object which are not just shown with the ones we obviously see. Where
her piece help confront viewers with complex emotions both "terrifying and
artistic" in some way and never end with just one view.
4.
How does Djurberg play with the ideas of
children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?
Djurberg work helps show a more negative
and more disturbing side of these children stories compared to their sweet and innocence
setting which they are normally shown, to help show more of their original
meanings to their work by viewing it in a way that has never been shown before.
And their focus on seeing it in a darker and scarier side then how we were original
shown through these works, helps show more beyond of what it means than what it
says. So she’s helping us give more of
these different perspectives of children’s stories through her work to help
open it even more in comparison to how they were originally shown.
5.
There is a current fascination by some
designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do
you think this has come about?
6.
In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's
work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?
For my opinion, her work was most likely
chosen based on her new form of style and movement which were clearly different
from what artist are doing. But another reason which we have show throughout
this blog is her theme, of different perspectives and view of an idea or thing
as a whole rather than of from one area, and to show it in her work so interestingly
that it makes the audience fascinated and helps in understand her piece.
7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.
What I also like about her work was her approach in the use
of changing the traditional ideas of sweet and innocence, into something that
is dark and disturbing, which plays very well in relation to her ideas, it help
remind me of some of the other ideas, including a game which also explores this
kind of idea. Know as Alice Madness returns, it focus on the aftermath of the
famous Alice in wonderland, shows a darker side of the little girl following
her parents death, and show the famous world of wonderland in a far more
darker, gorier, and most disturbing place that it has ever taken for a game, so
the idea is no different, making me find it both interesting yet disturbed at
the same time, which I believe is what the artist what us to experiences.
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/eden357918.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/25/artist-nathalie-djurberg
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awry
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surrealistic
http://www.surrealism.org/
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/nathalie-djurberg
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-claymation.htm
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