Idle insanity mashes up with everyday banality, colorful media and schizophrenic graphics in Stunningly Harmful Artlikes, six audio-visual vignettes that may in fact cause you harm.
The series brings Being John Malkovich to mind: media artist Jason Nelson is pretty much letting us glimpse a mundane world through his compulsively musical mind. Along the way you’ll see or hear appropriated snatches of songs, games and imagery seen elsewhere but out-of-context.
The playlist includes Sebastopol: City of the Future, Super Heaven, Colonization is Fun!, and Apples! Amazing Apples! My favourite is probably And a Hunting We Will Go, which — beneath the surface of a nearly-violent personal display — highlights the strangeness of Pick Up Stix. (Why are those children holding weapons?) I also like Dead! Dead! Dead, mostly because the (presumable) members of Nelson’s family look sick (to death!) of his current obsession.
When last we visited Mr. Nelson, he brought us Game, Game, Game and Again Game — which was definitely more coherent and probably less likely to incite a riot.
