Madeline Morales
Time Based Media
Su Ye
11/15/13
This
is It Collective
The
This Is It Collective is made up of Andy Baker, Laura Bird, Rose Blake, Thomas
Bolwell, Daniel Britt, Hugo Donkin, Chan An Gee, Michael Knight, Nicos Livesey,
Tom McCaughan, Azusa Nakagawa, Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, a group of 14
artists based in London, England. Each artist has background work in animation
and design, but together as a group they have adapted a short film format and
created 2 films that have not only won them awards the world over, but also a
steady and loyal viewership that is millions strong. Their work is entirely
self-funded, a sign of their dedication to and passion for their work, and has
earned them recognition from both the art world and from laypeople alike.
The
first thing people tend to notice in This Is It’s work is the children’s-show
aesthetic the group adopts in both their set and character design as well as
their spoken dialogue. This primes the audience to anticipate a mild, maybe
even boring or childish performance, so as the piece progresses, the audience
is jarred. Their two films, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared and Bad Things That Could
Happen, both rely heavily on this homemade, cardboard and kitschy, man-made and
manually operated appearance, but Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, in particular, turns
the aesthetic on its head, forcefully meshing violence and viscera with dancing
puppets and songs about creativity.
This
startling contrast between cute and gruesome gives the work it’s meaning—making
the mundane become absurd and, on occasion, hilarious. Bad Things That Could
Happen takes a simple idea (bad things that could—potentially—happen) and literally
blows it up to ridiculous proportions. The film features 7 short scenarios in
which massively scaled everyday objects go on to create disastrous events—events
that are highly unlikely but are, undoubtedly, “bad”—such as an errant match
setting a picnic table aflame, a piece of candy ripping out someone’s front
teeth, and, most humorously, a tragic misspelling of the title written in irreversible
black wire.
Conversely,
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is more than it appears to be on the surface. At face
value, the film seems to be about a sadistic notepad that teaches a ragtag
group of puppets about creativity and then converts their kitchen into an
abysmal and hellish nightmare realm in which they thrash about violently and
consume the innards of the fallen. However, when one takes into consideration
the decision to portray the characters in such a way that screams “children’s
television,” it gives the film context and makes the message of the piece more
apparent—that is, children’s media, by dictating what the children should do or
say in order to be creative (in this film, this is represented by the notebook
telling the puppets that they “might need to slow it down” when they stray from
his directions and that “green is not a creative color” when they play a word
game) kills the actual creativity that comes naturally to children.
The
This is It Collective has created for itself an identity that meshes together
simple and childlike with the bizarre, outlandish, violent and, on occasion,
grotesque. This team of artists collaborating together to orchestrate these
films have successfully created works that run the gamut from mundane to
insane, reaching a wide audience and conveying their messages through jarring
juxtapositions and massive-scale exaggerations. As a group, This is It manages
to create works with mass appeal that can engage both critics and the general
public, making them an important group among not only upcoming artists but also
professionals who have been involved with the arts for many years.
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