The artist who killed a cat and masturbated on it

[RedBeard]

All postmodern art is visual. It's also linguistic.

It's always linguistic in the sense that it deconstructs some other work, or "argument" (from a philosophical POV). It may not always illustrate words or phrases, but the conceptual basis remains. Similarly, the artist mentioned in the OP makes an iconoclastic effort to borrow other bits of film and reveal a different perspective about them, all the while decrying the tenability of objectivity (in this case, the objective nature of violence and how it influences us). Rejecting grand narratives, whether they be scientific, spiritual, religious, political, or otherwise, is a staple of the postmodern movement.

[RedBeard]

Not all art about either propaganda or grand narratives is postmodern. The most essential pieces of postmodern art focused solely on the space between language and objective reality, for that is the core of the movement; the rest just happens to relate.

What would you call this... art... then?

[RedBeard]

Yep.

Lol.

I meant, "is there any movement of art this belongs to?"

[Creepy-male]

I think he could have made the point without killing the cat, especially seeing as how you have to paraphrase it in english for people to understand anyways. Also I think most people are just going to look at the video and be like "there's a guy killing a cat and ejaculating on it", and not "hmmm what is the nature of violence". So pretty much it requires explanation anyways, why not forgo killing the cat in order to present the question with rhetoric instead? I'm sure if there is any point about society and violence he could have easily just observed rather than jump in.

Which is basically what he's doing he's jumping in on the violent side, and being like "I just killed a cat and ejaculated on it", wow look at me! You think you're better you are not because violence is everywhere! hahaha! And pretty much he could run around and do this all day, until someone imprisons him or kills him and then it pretty much proves his point. He's just a weak insecure showman trying to snuff out innocence and waiting for someone else to come up with the cure while he spreads the disease for attention. Imo while there may be deception to violence, some are trying to be part of the solution and not amplifying the problem. Which I tend to think that's part of the issue, deception and artifice is everywhere but some of that is born in transcendental hope for something better that can't take flight but wants to and some of that is born in willful social maneovering and manipulation.

[Absurd]

Life is a means to an end. If it were the end, we'd all be cattle.

I think it is the other way around.

[Absurd]

Do you shit for fun?

No, just when I'm depressed and want to die.

Eating the cat would have made this piece much easier to swallow.

[Creepy-male]

He's not innocent; he's not a cynic either.

Ummm I didn't say if he's innocent or a cynic, I don't really care, I mean I have my opinions about the guy but I don't really want to share.

He's revealing meaning where before there was none visible and if that poses a threat to you, you are either a child, or dead on the inside.

It doesn't posses a threat anymore than someone revealing meaning from taking a shit and examining it does, doesn't mean I want to watch it and help whaft around the scent.

Life is a means to an end. If it were the end, we'd all be cattle.

and the meaning to it all is onward to the pathway of cattledom!

BRILLIANT, WAKE UP TO THE NEW DAWN, OF CATTLE

[Aquagraph]

I think he could have made the point without killing the cat[...]

But he did make a point. Everything else is irrelevant sentimentalism. He also paid the price that his society imposes to him.

Really couldn't care less why he thinks he did it. It's just beyond anything I would think was the right thing to do.

Exactly! Thank you for talking about him (and bumping).

Sometimes art is insightful, clever, and creative; other times it's just an excuse for insanity.

Fuck motives, stop bickering about the ethics and look at it! It's fucking obvious that this is unethical, not normal, grotesque and he might not be what you'd consider sane. If killing cats would be a fad I might consider it as an issue. I see this as a single ethical incident (lol) with lots of potential to affect people.

Some people in this thread have realized that your shock is part of the piece.

[chriscorey]

But he did make a point. Everything else is irrelevant sentimentalism. He also paid the price that his society imposes to him.
Exactly! Thank you for talking about him (and bumping).

Fuck motives, stop bickering about the ethics and look at it! It's fucking obvious that this is unethical, not normal, grotesque and he might not be what you'd consider sane. If killing cats would be a fad I might consider it as an issue. I see this as a single ethical incident (lol) with lots of potential to affect people.

Some people in this thread have realized that your shock is part of the piece.

Soooooooooo pointless? oh, and a touch of animal cruelty. *slaps you with Te* lots of shit affects people.

[mu4]

I think he could have made the point without killing the cat, especially seeing as how you have to paraphrase it in english for people to understand anyways. Also I think most people are just going to look at the video and be like "there's a guy killing a cat and ejaculating on it", and not "hmmm what is the nature of violence". So pretty much it requires explanation anyways, why not forgo killing the cat in order to present the question with rhetoric instead? I'm sure if there is any point about society and violence he could have easily just observed rather than jump in.

Which is basically what he's doing he's jumping in on the violent side, and being like "I just killed a cat and ejaculated on it", wow look at me! You think you're better you are not because violence is everywhere! hahaha! And pretty much he could run around and do this all day, until someone imprisons him or kills him and then it pretty much proves his point. He's just a weak insecure showman trying to snuff out innocence and waiting for someone else to come up with the cure while he spreads the disease for attention. Imo while there may be deception to violence, some are trying to be part of the solution and not amplifying the problem. Which I tend to think that's part of the issue, deception and artifice is everywhere but some of that is born in transcendental hope for something better that can't take flight but wants to and some of that is born in willful social maneovering and manipulation.

I figure eventually this topic would start again.

I think he did it to make a point(but also to achieve fame) but shock/trauma actually has opposing effects on people. Trauma can mobilize as well as desensitize, or simply be not very shocking.

Trauma/shock is certainly a way to make people informed and disturbed, but long term trauma will bring about apathy and a certain level of necessary callousness.

If you kill(or even witness) one person it might be a huge event in your life, if you kill 100, well that's almost like your job. If you kill a million, you're pretty damn skilled at that thing and it might as well be your identity.

People get conditioned to shock, which imo is why organizations like PETA and many shock groups all have to do more outrageous things to get noticed, which traumatize and make parts(not all) of the population more entrenched and callous. These groups take the credit for all the gains in these area because their primary object is to be noticed not to achieve concrete gains, while organizations like Humane Society do most of the grunt work and pragmatics to create a better environment.

If you've ever been to various art museum and seem some of the multimedia video pieces by various artists, you can be sure that almost all of them are extremely boring and pretentious and devoid of viewers. I've gone thru my share of museums, the video rooms most often empty, it's just black and white movies of people doing wierd stuff. I'm sure most people have seen black and white holocaust pictures/videos and brutality to humanity many times in their life, this is something many individuals will be desensitized to, but rarely have they seen a animal butchered in-front of them especially not a pet animal. Given how much shock art is out there, including baby fetuses and such, I think many people are very desensitized about the art world, it's to the point that unless a person was actually murdered, nobody really cares that much. I'm pretty sure some artist think that's a good idea too.

Well at least this guy is a "successful" artists, god knows what he would try to do if he was a "failed" artists... I mean he would have to step it up a notch or something.

[Creepy-male]

But he did make a point. Everything else is irrelevant sentimentalism. He also paid the price that his society imposes to him.

Ok I'm not saying he didn't make a point, what I said was that it was possible to make the point without killing the animal. Further who is to really determine what sentimentalism is relevant or irrelevant? Sentiments are sentiments and don't have to be "relevant" and judged by self-appointed arbiters. Finally I'm not interesting in if he has paid the price that society imposes to him or if he hadn't I was just just interesting in expressing my impressions of the situation.

Which is that:

1) the purposefulness of the act is betrayed by a huge explanation, which could have just been given without murdering a cat.
2) I don't like watching cat's get decapitated and then ejaculated on
3) I think I could have understood his point on violence and deception with a simple explanation, observation, or reference to a historical case
4) I think something about his explanation sounds more like a crafty way of making a plea for un-explained impulses he feels and turning this dark side around to be a question for society. In other words its sounds like a cat murder's confession to society. The comparison with deceptive structured violence is especially clever because it almost challenges any lawful opposition against him that involves infringement on innocence, freedom, or violence in such a way like "you think you are better than me?".
5) I extend point 4 to say no but structured violence as a result of system isn't better than him but just the same. His explanation attempts to give purpose or understanding to his "purposeless" violence. It's the same as anything else, we could say nothing has meaning or purpose until we give it that. Likewise violence in essence may not really have a purpose or function, until we give it that purpose or function.
6) Finally I don't personally have self-defined purpose to kill cats, nor self-defined purpose to watch people kill cats, nor self-defined purpose to defend people who kills cats. I admit I'd probably kill a cat if it was an issue of survival and life and death, but otherwise I just leave cats alone -- so I don't really relate to the piece of "art" as much.
7) Further if this is "art" then essentially we could strip police brutality of it's supposed meaning and call street violence perpetrated by police as "street art".... we could call a drunk husband beating a wife "family art", once we remove excuses and supposed meaning like "he was drunk".... we could call war as "grand national competition art showcases"... and likewise, but at the end of the day most people don't really see it as "art", although really anything could be "art", I could film myself taking a shit over his video and then ejaculating on it as "art".