Barf
Digitally hand-drawn animation.
The first animation I created.
2011.
A viewer's response:
“barf” is susceptible to being written off as:
a) propaganda
or b) an extremely reductionist take on american history.
and that’s even taking into account the title–“barf”–which i take as a stab at self-parody, as in, look at this partisan nonsense i puked up; i can’t help it, i’m just as sick as anyone.
that said… it is more complex than (a) or (b), and therefore a lot more complicated than your average occupy wall street rally (thank god). here is an apparent commentary on money, consumption, violence, stupidity, political rhetoric, media, power, animals, women, blah blah blah, heard it all before from every blue-bellied howard-zinn-quoting liberal arts professor. teddy roosevelt with his rhino, obama with his big mac, palin with her oil spill, jackson with his trail of tears, our anonymous citizen with his anonymous pound of anonymous meat “product.” BUT: oddly, the initial question is, “why aren’t there figures of peace on our dollar bills?” which brings up the primary issue of images/representations/symbols in the first place: that absolutely iconic image of teddy roosevelt standing over the rhino, strongly reinforced by your choice to morph the animation into an actual black-and-white photo–hell yes, america! we’re in ur country, hunting ur rhinos.
if we take that issue and apply it broadly, we have a commentary on what it means to consume an image/media, just as the viewer is theoretically consuming your images/multimedia, which you’ve attractively labelled “barf.” (vomit being one of my personal favorite tropes, for some reason.) the question is not (exclusively, at least), Why Is America Such an Awful Place and Why Are Its People So Power-“Hungry” and Subsequently “Sick”? the question is (also), “what would we buy if there were figures of peace on our money?” which, in the context of the film, is something of a mindfuck. i take it, of course, as a purely hypothetical question—it is not as though i suppose (though i do think the film is susceptible to this rather simplistic interpretation) that you think that putting a picture of MLK on our dollar bills would end american neocolonialism. but it allows us to ask: is money not imperialist by nature?
huh? this is sort of a novel concept. occupiers of wall street are generally so absolutely obsessed with Money As Root Of All Evil few have stopped to consider whether the problem is substantially deeper and therefore more absolutely Personal than that; to me, this animation implies the view that money simply ENABLES the uglier facets of our nature, rather than CAUSING them. and therefore #KillingTheRich is far from the point; that’s just another golden calf for us to crucify. money, it turns out, does not control us; it is us. (as you cleverly imply: the dead presidents arise in turn from their respective coinages to kill again. and you don’t spare obama, thank god. sarah palin… what is her deal. i will literally never understand.)
point being, just stop–“for christ’s sake”–with the mindless violence. primum non nocere: first, do no harm.
a) propaganda
or b) an extremely reductionist take on american history.
and that’s even taking into account the title–“barf”–which i take as a stab at self-parody, as in, look at this partisan nonsense i puked up; i can’t help it, i’m just as sick as anyone.
that said… it is more complex than (a) or (b), and therefore a lot more complicated than your average occupy wall street rally (thank god). here is an apparent commentary on money, consumption, violence, stupidity, political rhetoric, media, power, animals, women, blah blah blah, heard it all before from every blue-bellied howard-zinn-quoting liberal arts professor. teddy roosevelt with his rhino, obama with his big mac, palin with her oil spill, jackson with his trail of tears, our anonymous citizen with his anonymous pound of anonymous meat “product.” BUT: oddly, the initial question is, “why aren’t there figures of peace on our dollar bills?” which brings up the primary issue of images/representations/symbols in the first place: that absolutely iconic image of teddy roosevelt standing over the rhino, strongly reinforced by your choice to morph the animation into an actual black-and-white photo–hell yes, america! we’re in ur country, hunting ur rhinos.
if we take that issue and apply it broadly, we have a commentary on what it means to consume an image/media, just as the viewer is theoretically consuming your images/multimedia, which you’ve attractively labelled “barf.” (vomit being one of my personal favorite tropes, for some reason.) the question is not (exclusively, at least), Why Is America Such an Awful Place and Why Are Its People So Power-“Hungry” and Subsequently “Sick”? the question is (also), “what would we buy if there were figures of peace on our money?” which, in the context of the film, is something of a mindfuck. i take it, of course, as a purely hypothetical question—it is not as though i suppose (though i do think the film is susceptible to this rather simplistic interpretation) that you think that putting a picture of MLK on our dollar bills would end american neocolonialism. but it allows us to ask: is money not imperialist by nature?
huh? this is sort of a novel concept. occupiers of wall street are generally so absolutely obsessed with Money As Root Of All Evil few have stopped to consider whether the problem is substantially deeper and therefore more absolutely Personal than that; to me, this animation implies the view that money simply ENABLES the uglier facets of our nature, rather than CAUSING them. and therefore #KillingTheRich is far from the point; that’s just another golden calf for us to crucify. money, it turns out, does not control us; it is us. (as you cleverly imply: the dead presidents arise in turn from their respective coinages to kill again. and you don’t spare obama, thank god. sarah palin… what is her deal. i will literally never understand.)
point being, just stop–“for christ’s sake”–with the mindless violence. primum non nocere: first, do no harm.
