ART

This sculpture is the final result of my Funny Surprise sculpture. I wanted to remove the burgerhead element because it had become too dominant and distraction, but I had difficulty figuring out what to replace it with. After considering alternatives, I decided on no face at all. I also solved the top heavy problem, so I removed the gas tank. Borrowing from the logic of figurines, I mounted it on a platform for stability so it can be plopped down wherever necessary.

If you look into the flower foil covering it head, you see that its actually headless. This literal emptiness is equivalent to the implied vapid quality of its former burgerhead, full of total substantive emptiness.

I added a plume for its tail. I ordered these feathers from Singapore through eBay. They were advertised as ostrich feathers, but I’ve never seen an ostrich with these colourings. I assume they are died, or phoney, or both. I could have ordered any colour feather, but I made them match the happy face beach ball skin to pose a question. Why does the colour of the bird’s skin have any bearing on the colours of its feathers? Considering colour is a lived experience originating in the eye, why would they have any relationship of this type? This coherent/incoherent oscillation is part of the internal logic and expression of a mascot. It doesn’t matter what colours it is, as long as they are different than the competition. And as long as we are focused on what its selling us, we don’t question what a mascot looks like. Ultimately, the mascot is a distraction or diversion tactic. The bigger the mascot, the more they are hiding.

The orange tie on its neck makes it seem alive, as if it were lead to stand on the platform and could leap off at any second. This gives the mascot a sinister quality of exploitation and torture, despite its happy face skin and bright pop colours. This element brought to mind the infamous Hooded Man photograph taken in 2003 by Sergeant Ivan Frederick of Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh, a prisoner subjected to torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib prison. The circulation, aesthetisization, and commodification of this image is also part of the internal logic of a mascot. The mascot is singled out, trotted out, and tortured with attention. The mascot never sleeps.

I left one of the air spouts visible on the leg to suggest that the sculpture is actually inflated full of air as another form of emptiness.