Snake Words

For this  blog I am going to discuss the use of video media in the Love Planet exhibit.  Above is Snake Words, an animation Baldwin created before the exhibit that is now showing at Squires Student center on the Virginia Tech Campus.  The pure fantastical linear drawings connect the viewer to images from the North's travels along with other video collage materials.  The animated characters

  Baldwin creates remind me of John Lennon's early drawings http://www.johnlennonartwork.com/popup_early.html.   Baldwin is not mimicking Lennon's work. North's works are truly originals, melding together ideas that free flow and must be recorded before they dissolve or before its just too late. Lennon's drawings expressed the same urgency through the use of quick linear drawings.  As Mindy states on The Lost Planet's blog:  "The films are meant to be slightly comedic in case you have any doubts."

You get to see some animations that Mindy and Baldwin created collaboratively for the Love Planet exhibit now showing through September 24th.  

One is a part of the installation for Nature Deficit Disorder. Like Snake Words the work is meant to bring your thinking to the surface, and laugh a bit while you are looking.

The instructions for using the Nature Deficit Emergence Device (above right) are as follows:

1. The patient stands with his heart facing reflecting device

2. Patient focuses eyes into viewing window

3. Film medicine is administered to patient

4. The patient can now go on living.

In case you haven't heard about it yet, Nature Deficit Disorder is a term coined by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods. Louv's theory is that children are exhibiting a wide range of behavioral problems because they are spending less time outdoors and more time sitting in front of the video screen.  The irony of the North's installation can't be missed...to be cured of the very item that is causing the problem...being indoors and viewing a video to heal seems like a modern panacea. Perhaps it is a form of artistic homeopathy; of "like curing like." Make no bones about it though (and there are bones in the Nature Deficit Disorder Remedy Dispensing Device, above left), Mindy and Baldwin are thoroughly involved in being outdoors with their family. This artwork is meant for those who must see the idea diffused into a visual concept that goes beyond the obvious cure of just "going out to play." It attracts the mind that wants an easy fix, and it makes a strong statement about the promise that it is as easy as standing in front of a machine to cure yourself of this ill. Maybe these are some of the words that Baldwin is referring to in Snake Words...the marketing of quick fixes to contemporary society for some of our biggest issues.

So...be the savvy consumer and watch out for "snake words."


Robin Scully Boucher