Pompompom- Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
For our last project, we are tasked to do a research on controversial video, song or performance art. I don’t know why but the first thought that came to my mind was a MV called Pompompom by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
This video mainly consists of nonsensical elements like broken arms and funky bright colours. I was one of the few people that witness the backlash it received when it first came out whereby people were saying that this video was a bad educational material for kids and should ban children from viewing it. However, it’s quite interesting that shortly after it was released, people actually start viewing this as an art and actually start liking it. Although it is out of the norm and quirky, I feel that to be able to incorporate a video with so many interesting elements and still create a strong constant dynamic is a great feat and admirable.
Drawing Restraint – Matthew Barney
DRAWING RESTRAINT (1987-present) is a significant and long-term project for Barney, in which he proposes art-making as parallel to athletic training: the development of form occurs through resistance. Begun while still a student at Yale, Barney was influenced by his background as an athlete and sought to foreground the physical body and its tensions in a studio practice.
http://www.ago.net/matthew-barney-drawing-restraint
One of the performance art that caught my eye from this series of Matthew Barney is Still. As shown above, Barney attempts to mark the ceiling and the walls while bouncing on a tilted trampoline or tethered at the thighs with bungee cords. He being an ex-athletic, tries to draw upon an athletic model of development in which growth occurs only through restraint. As a result, his muscle will encounter resistance, which becomes engorged and is broken down, and through healing becomes stronger. In my honest opinion, while I do understand his underlying concept to recreate an athletic’s body structure, however, I cannot fathom why he would want to recreate these performances through other mediums when he could go through the normal athletic routine to achieve similar results. Also, the whole series has been around for 3 decades which is I feel is a great feat to be able to hold on and continue performing.
Get Back- The Beatles
One controversial song is Get Back by The Beatles. The controversial with this song is that some said to be about getting back to your inner child and inner peace, whereas others believe that the tune is a covert attack on immigration in the United Kingdom. There are also some who say that this was meant for the xenophobic politicians and racists in England at that time. While I can’t comment much about the song as I do not have much knowledge about the situation and history then, I feel that this is an interesting example whereby a song can create such a huge commotion and discussion with different perspective and ideology.
