Baby Bus: Go to Toilet by Myself discusses how digital media has shaped the aesthetics of "Elsagate" (i.e. the use of children's cartoon characters to interpret adult visual forms of violence, pornography, horror, etc.) and its special representation in the Chinese context. Neil Postman, in "The Disappearance of Childhood," predicts that changes in media will undermine the information hierarchy created by the invention of the printing press and gradually eliminate the notion of "children" as a generation. In the age of social media, the overproduction of information and the lack of content supervision have led to the mis-matching of "adult" content with "child" forms, and thus to the ethical implications of technology for childhood education. But on the other hand, the social media era has also liberated this visual form of “children aesthetics" from its function of education, and the strong, simple, and brutal visual characteristics have the potential to represent other cultural issues. By stacking ready-made images and children's style graphic design images in the virtual toy space, the project intensifies the visual shock of the children's cult through maximum abuse, thus temporarily disconnecting the viewer from the rational perception of the work and making him/her feel the cruelty of the Elsagate aesthetics more genuinely.
《宝宝巴士:自己上厕所》讨论数字技术对“儿童邪典”这一风格(即利用儿童卡通人物的形式演绎暴力,色情,恐怖等成人元素的视觉形式)的形成以及其在中国语境下的特殊意义。Neil Postman曾在《童年的消逝》中预言了传播媒介的变化将会破坏印刷术发明所形成的信息等级制度并逐渐消除“儿童”这一代际概念。社交媒体时代下,过量的信息生产与滞后的筛选审核导致了“成人”的内容与“儿童”的形式的错误配对,并因此导致了信息技术对幼儿教育的伦理问题。但从另一角度来说,社交媒体时代也让“儿童美学”这一特殊视觉形式从教育儿童的功能中解放出来,其强烈,单纯、残酷的视觉特征有表现其它文化议题的可能性。
在中国的文化背景下,儿童邪典美学的生成却早于社交媒体时代的到来。中国的儿童邪典美学集中表现在摇摇车这一零售业产品之上。其脱胎于卡通人物的恐怖外貌多数是在降低成本与规避版权的需求下形成的,因而更具有山寨色彩。但是如果从“新美学”的角度看待摇摇车(“new aesthetic”,由James Bridle提出,指数字技术和互联网的视觉语言在现实世界中的日益增多,以及虚拟与实体的融合,)其转化虚拟形象为实体的制作逻辑又毫无疑问地使它成为最早的新美学物件之一。项目将现成品影像与儿童风格平面设计图像堆叠于玩具空间中,通过最大限度的滥用,强化儿童邪典的形式震慑力,从而使观者暂时脱离对作品的理性认知,更真切感受儿童邪典美学的残酷。
在中国的文化背景下,儿童邪典美学的生成却早于社交媒体时代的到来。中国的儿童邪典美学集中表现在摇摇车这一零售业产品之上。其脱胎于卡通人物的恐怖外貌多数是在降低成本与规避版权的需求下形成的,因而更具有山寨色彩。但是如果从“新美学”的角度看待摇摇车(“new aesthetic”,由James Bridle提出,指数字技术和互联网的视觉语言在现实世界中的日益增多,以及虚拟与实体的融合,)其转化虚拟形象为实体的制作逻辑又毫无疑问地使它成为最早的新美学物件之一。项目将现成品影像与儿童风格平面设计图像堆叠于玩具空间中,通过最大限度的滥用,强化儿童邪典的形式震慑力,从而使观者暂时脱离对作品的理性认知,更真切感受儿童邪典美学的残酷。