Chris Christion
The Brute Acts I - III
2018
Appropriation art collage piece
Work-in-progress
The Brute Act I, Appropriation art collage piece, work-in-progress 2015, Running Time: 02:52
The Brute Act I-III is an exploration of the universally damaging and self-destructive pattern of male dominance as a tactic of social organization. The Brute is a video collage, which layers multiple audio and visual narratives running simultaneously over one another including a gang fight defused by homophobia, and a man who removed his manhood in hopes that the gods would grant him wordily riches in exchange.
What is the Brute Series about?
These narratives are anchored by a series of abridged interviews with retired American professional boxer Mike Tyson that explore the complex relationship that societies have created with the mythology of the alpha male persona and the paradox of cultural acceptance of the social value benefits of a professional persona of brutality while rejecting and demonizing those collective traits outside of the mediated arena of professional and economic competition.
The Brute Act II, Appropriation art collage piece, work-in-progress 2015, Running Time: 02:51
The Brute Act III, Appropriation art collage piece, work-in-progress 2015, Running Time: 03:51
The Brute Acts I – III is a meditation on outdated values, how they are accepted by society and develop their own supportive mythology by which actions are justified. The work offers no resolve only deliberation on how values indoctrinated by culture become part of the myth by which we judge our own characteristics and task in society and the ways that social myths are used to solidify value.