Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'

From what I understand "Claymation" is part of an area of animation called "Stop Motion" where a transformable substance like clay, is created into a character and is placed and photographed, then transformed and photographed again. Using this technique many frames are stored and then played back at a higher frame rate, giving the viewer the sensation that the clay character  is moving just like a normal film.


A surrealism was developed by the 20th century artists and writers that flourished in between WWI and WWII and was a leap from the Dada movement into which someone would take inspiration from dreams or their subconscious to replicate it in their art, I think we are at our most unique in our subconscious mind. “Surrealistic Garden of Eden" Djurberg rather than taking us into a replica of what most people perceive the Garden of Eden to be holy and pure, we a thrown into a garden from hell. The statement "all that is natural goes awry" suggests that the natural environment of a holy garden is twisted and malfunctioned into its opposite. Djurberg's "flowers confront viewers with the complex nature of emotions in a terrifying and artistic way."  challenging the viewer at what they perceive as beautiful. Maybe something so horrifying and dark can, in some people minds, be beautiful.

Again I think that Djurberg is trying to challenge people's subconscious taking from what people know what is right and what is wrong and mixing them together to provoke new thought all together, having models eaten alive and fall apart and large dark gloomy flowers challenges the viewers emotions and thoughts towards her "Garden of Eden" maybe life isn't as perfect and pure as we like to think it is.

I feel as though Djurberg uses the ideas like a man and woman fall in love or innocently kiss at the end of a story, or just the "norm" of children's stories of an happy ending, and takes that to make something disturbing and twisted therefore leaving the audience with a lasting thought of what she is trying to achieve. She challenges society and what we think as a whole, taking something we find warm and sweet and turning it into something we feel uncomfortable with and have a hard time accepting.
I think this has come about because designers feel as though they need to tap into another side of human thought and emotion that can bring viewers into maybe a place in their own mind that they have not explored, using the element of surprise and also the elements of shock and horror.

Djurberg's work, I think, was placed at the Venice Biennale as the full experience of her work  would promote the gallery by simple "word of mouth" people would walk into her exhibition, feel the dark environment, be confronted with theses emotions, feel small against the large flowers and watch her horrifying "claymation" and then proceed to leave the gallery and try carry on with normal life. But at the same time walk away with a new part of their subconscious mind having been played with, then talk and tell more people about it.

Djurberg's work to me makes me feel like things that a dark and disturbing, things that force us to confront emotions that we like to not face, can in themselves be beautiful and something to provoke thought. Maybe in my own work I can use surrealism and tap into my own dark thoughts and produce work that other people can admire





http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg-experiment-at-venice-art-biennale-09.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Biennale
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/awry
http://www.surrealist.com/
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/nathalie-djurberg