Ellen Wetmore: Monstrum Series

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Artist(s):

Ellen Wetmore

Title:

Monstrum Series

Exhibition:

SIGGRAPH 2003: CG03: Computer Graphics 2003

Keywords:

Artist Statement:

I am deeply interested in monsters, not the terrifying kind, but an undiscovered sort of fantastic fauna. Rather than manipulating once-living creatures, I prefer to play these issues out digitally and with traditional sculpture materials. I am also interested in skeletal anatomy as the formal and practical problem of line, levers, and hinges, and blood vessels as signal-bearing audio and electrical cables.

This is a set of drawings and sculptures that explore my ideas of fantastic fauna. This is my way of being Dr. Moreau or Dr. Frankenstein without the corpses or the smell. Bicephalous Intonare is a two-headed creature wired with speakers that moan and breathe. Spina llluminatio is made of similar materials, but it illuminates according to available light (or, actually, lack thereof). These characters are mounted under plexiglass in hand-built, wall-mounted, display cabinets. The installation also includes two drawings: Quadrafin and Monstrum Thyrsus.