Sometimes I find myself obsessing over horrifying things, imagining a plane crashing into the house, being abducted and tortured, accidentally killing someone I love.... Even though it makes me feel uncomfortable and sometimes very sad, I cant stop it. I thought I might put together a collection of images, videos and music I have made or will make in the future when I find myself in that particular head-space, to direct it into something focused. I guess you could call this my 'horror blog'..
I recently stumbled across this artist's work - I am admittedly not a huge Manga fanatic, but I found his stuff cool. Weirdly, when I looked up his bio I learned that he was born in 1963 (the year my mother was born) and had his first story published in 1987 (the year I was born) which I thought was pretty neat.... I like those kind of little things :P Some of the recurring themes of Ito's work include body horror, seemingly ordinary characters who begin to act out of irrational compulsion, the breakdown of society, deep sea organisms, and the inevitability of one's demise. Check out some of his work below or find out more here
Here are some still frames from some videoing I did today.
I was working on some music for the new show I am involved in with the Dublin Aerialists and it kind of threw me into a zone. I think I captured it, the feeling.
I have just finished a short film/music video that I have been working on for two or three days. "Lullaby For Lilly Tooth" began forming itself in June of this year, when I woke one morning at my family home in Corofin, Co. Galway with the line "how did it feel when you interviewed my teeth?". I had no idea why or what it was meant to mean or anything, but I was very excited by it and started brainstorming. I didn't think to much about the script, it just sorta was there.. I think teeth are pretty amazing, the are one of the strongest parts of the body and keep us alive day after day by facilitating the ingestion of food. Many animals use their teeth to threaten.. and to kill! Yet we use our teeth to express joy, to make people feel at ease and also as a symbol of status and beauty. Teeth can last for thousands and thousands of years, buried deep in the ground and holding secrets of civilization who went before - yet if mistreated as part of the living organism they belong to, can melt away to nothing but an invisible root in no more than a year. Teeth rot from the inside out with the potential to maintain the external facade of beauty and health yet inside they can be harboring rotten, black, disintegrating flesh. I don't know of any other part of the body that can be rotting away for years without killing you.
I am very interested in how two opposing things can be running simultaneously in the same body, either physically or psychologically. Like the way a rotting tooth can look healthy when it's dying or dead. People who are super charismatic performers and revel in the lights of the stage be the most cripplingly shy individuals in normal life... weird! Things are never what we think..
We use smiles as a tool for deception and although this might sound silly, I am glad to be developing a frown line in between my eyebrows because I rather be frowning when unhappy than pretending things are fine with a smile that is untrue. Anyways, I don't trust them too much any more and I want to get beyond the pearly whites to the rotting flesh underneath! Body Rotten.
