WEEK 1- Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both terrifyingly

disturbing and artlessly sweet.

The new works created for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that is natural goes awry.

She exposes the innate fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.

Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.

(http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg)

Research Djurberg's work in order to answer the following questions;

1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?



(1)
'Claymation' is a shortened version of the word 'clay animation'. Clay animation consists of "stock motion animation"(Wiki) which are usually not very long and are made out of malleable materials such as plasticine clay.


(2)
Well surrealism consists of realistic things expressed or received in a non-realistic way, for example in Nathalie Djurberg's "Experiment" she creates the garden of Eden but not in the usual happy-perfect fashion, instead she creates a horroristic, uncomfortable and hostile environment. This creates a surreal experience since it isn't something we'd expect in the garden of Eden.

(3)
She gives the observer a set of unusual emotions that are particularly pleasant, for example in the "Experiment" she gives us emotions of unease, nausea, awkwardness and abuse. These aren't emotions you'd normally expect from a art exhibition but maybe that's what Nathalie what's to achieve, maybe she wants to be different to the usual crowd. After all this is one the biggest motivations for artists throughout history to create new and original works.

(4)
A lot of Nathalie's works consist of candy colored works that are usually of objects or people who are usually regarded by society as innocent. These objects and people include things such as flowers and girls. She sticks to her objective of showing these things in a alternative light to the usual view of society by creating them in the complete opposite fashion to what their supposed to be. For example the flowers are supposed to be cute, small, beautifully colored and harmless instead their huge, ugly and give of a sense of unease. The girls are supposed to be innocent, harmless, attractive and sweet instead their they are sexually active, hostile, repulsive and a little scary. 

(5)     
It's hard to say but I think one possibility might be related to post modernistic view. what I mean is since the trend I see in post modernism tends to be breaking down the traditional views and beliefs of the traditional world and the vain hope of disclosing the issue by saying that both view points are both right and wrong, the world of progression is halted right to a stand still. This can be seen in the works of some designers as they break the traditional views of the innocent and create a completely opposite view, resulting in the viewers being overwhelmed by the struggle of accepting both views as the correct one. 

(6)
Honestly as a naturally curious person, I find her work quite fascinating as it does break the traditional view of the innocent and as an artwork I appreciate its ideas. This is probably why it was chosen, because of its uniqueness.



References:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/10/nathalie-djurberg-who-won-the.php