Art Metropole

#13436

Vore Babies - VHS

Artist

Maya Ben David

Date

2017

Publisher

Random Man Editions

Format

Video

Size

12 × 20 × 2.5 cm

Length

47 min

Description

“Recently pokemon everywhere have been changing into sexy pokemorphs. What are your sexiest pokemorphs? What pokemon do you dream about at night? What pokemon light your fires? Let’s talk about it, but don’t write fan fics!” –Anonymous Youtuber quoted in Maya Ben David’s “Pokemorph Me”, 2016

“Do you ever wonder what your insides look like? Could you put on a costume that looks like your insides? Then what if you made another costume that looked exactly the same, but turned it inside out so both of the insides were touching? Now what’s the inside?
How does it feel? How does it feel? How does it feel when you touch it? How do you feel when you touch it? How do you feel? How do you feel?” –Anonymous, 2018

“Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision.” –The Yellow Wallpaper, 1892

In the Victorian short story The Yellow Wallpaper, a woman is quarantined in a small attic covered in decaying yellow wallpaper. As she spends more time in the attic, she witnesses a woman behind the wallpaper who is also herself. The wallpaper is a portal between the exterior and interior of the self, it is both the embodiment of oppression and the way through it. In Maya Ben David’s “Vore Babies” it’s the hall of mirrors known as fan fiction, furries, and anthro-cosplay that are both the prison and the light at the end of the tunnel. Within Maya’s esoteric identity formations there is a simultaneous profession of deep loneliness, of being misunderstood, combined with a fierce protection of that same loneliness, of being “the only one who gets it.” If the 20th century’s answer to alienation (avant garde art or punk rock) was too easy to commodify, perhaps the 21stcentury’s answer to alienation is locked inside the comments section of sexy pokemorph deviant art fan fic forums.

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Maya Ben David (MBD) is a Toronto-based Jewish-Iranian Anthropomorphic Airplane. Working in video, installation and performance, she creates worlds and characters that aid her ongoing exploration of anthropomorphism, cosplay and performative personas. This artist’s video is her first publication and presents 15 of her short videos in 47 minutes.

Includes character guide + small foldout poster
Edition of 40 VHS tapes

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