Hydra

American cartoons are the starting point for Martin Arnold’s new work. Sequences of short films form the basis of a process of fragmentation, deconstruction, dismantling and repetition. Arnold uses fun, family entertainment to create films with open-ended possibilities for association. His pieces, such as Hydra (2013), Charon (2013), Nix (2013) and Self Control (2011), feature characters whose anatomy is no longer recognizable as such, but rather resemble puppets, remotely controlled from the outside. Trembling hands, dancing tongues, blinking eyes and snoring mouths move like ghosts against an abyss-like deep black background, in which bodily elements constantly disappear, only to reappear once more.