'Creature/Mummy' (2015), digitally scanned Fuji instant peel apart film, courtesy the artist
Theft, violence and sexual assault was depicted so effectually in Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 1971 film A Clockwork Orange that it was banned for 27 years in Britain. Also in 1971, the toy company Aurora released a series of Monster Scenes model kits, kids play sets that proved to be controversial due to their pretty disturbing overtones of torture. Melbourne-based, New Zealand-born artist Ronnie van Hout uses these two examples as a premise to explore what’s deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable in art and culture in his new show The Dark Pool. Both the movie and the monster models were vilified at the time, but Ronnie asks: how bad were they actually? Ronnie uses his own warped self-image to explore what happens when art/culture goes too far and society plunges it down into the ‘dark pool’. We caught up with the artist ahead of his show opening this weekend as part of the Melbourne Festival.
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The Creators Project: So, is the show is about whether art is bad for you?Ronnie van Hout: No, that’s not the question, because I know that art can be bad for you. It’s more like questioning why people believe that art is good for you; that it’s actually one of those worthwhile things. Why is there so much infrastructure, so much institutional input? If the institution and collectors and stuff—if all that disappeared—you’d still have art. So I think a lot of the time people would perceive what I do as kind of popular art, you know, using popular themes or something. Sort of low culture, I guess. Whereas in fact there’s no such thing as low culture and high culture. There’s only culture—or lack of it.What’s the story with the models?There was a very popular series of kits that were of famous monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and the Mummy. Towards the end of the ‘60s someone came up with the idea that what kids really want to do is interact, so they created these scenes. I think they saw them as a bit tongue-in-cheek and a bit kind of—not to be taken too seriously. But the problem was, if you look at them from another point of view, they look incredibly sick.
'Wolfman' (2015), digitally scanned Fuji instant peel apart film, courtesy the artist
How so?For example, there’s the classic woman wearing cut-off jeans, tight top, big breasts, and she’s called the “Victim”. The scenario is that Dr Deadly has got his mates Frankenstein and Dracula and Vampirella to kidnap a woman off the street, take her down to his torture chamber and torture her. He needed another candidate for his experiments. So there’s a pendulum, and a hanging cage, which has got spikes in it and things to tie people onto. These were playthings, sets for kids.
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What happened when they were released?A lot of kids got them for Christmas. I think that one of the parents was like, “What?!” because there was a lot of protest about them. The interesting thing about those model kits is that they’re now kind of collectable.How did you use the models in your work?I made the models and just photographed them using Polaroid film. I sort of like the process as well, the peeling apart [of the film]. But they’ve kind of weirdly ended up quite differently to how I imagined, because now I reckon they just look like all these characters have had a weekend away, and it’s like their snapshots of themselves! It’s like they’re posing and click click click. Just like they’ve photographed themselves!
'Alex' (2015), still from 2 channel video, courtesy the artist
You used a Blackmagic Camera to make some of the video work, how was that?Really good, yeah. I really like it. They decided they’d donate a camera to the Contemporary Centre for Photography for people to use, which is pretty amazing. It’s an incredibly simple camera. Very easy to use.Do you do everything yourself when creating your work?Yeah, and I have a pretty rudimentary set up as well. It’s not flash.Do you think that’s made a difference to your work?One night I shot with my HDV camera, which was plugged into the Blackmagic Shuttle and it’s just, no—there’s no comparison. I thought I might cut them together, but no, it’s like, “Get out the way.” The scary thing is that because I’m filming myself all of the time you can just see everything.
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'Alex' (2015), still from 2 channel video, courtesy the artist
What does the video element comprise of?I’ve shot scenes from A Clockwork Orange, not a re-enactment, just scenes, which is sort of structured around the interiors. To me it’s just like looking at the film and things becoming more apparent; what the subtext for things are. It’s interesting because the subtext for both of them [Monster Scenes and A Clockwork Orange] is basically about home invasion. The idea is about controlling the interface between the world and the interior.That’s interesting, because people often have more issues with popular culture because it gets in underneath, in around the sides and under the doors.Yeah, and the internet is like the leaking roof, you know.
'Punk on a Bed' (2015), mixed media sculpture, courtesy the artist
'Punk on a Bed' (2015), mixed media sculpture, courtesy the artist
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