Butt’s, Bats and Balls
The project Butt’s, Bats and Balls explores the intersection of masculinity, power, and violence — themes charged with both social and art-historical meaning. Humor, aggression, and shame blend together here into an image that is as disturbing as it is absurd.
Transformations
Start 2016 – Butt’s, Bats and Balls
The idea began with a short melody I hummed into my smartphone. The repeated line “You’ve got no shame at all” set the rhythm and tone for a series of seventeen musical fragments. One of these became the foundation for this 3D animation.
In the video, fragments of male bodies move, each with a baseball bat inserted into the anus. They attempt to hit a baseball, moving in sync with the beat. The soundtrack was created by the musician wwnflttr, who transformed the vocal recording into a pulsing rhythmic structure.
The imagery is warm in tone, almost cheerful, despite its grotesque content. The swings always miss their target; no blood is spilled, no body is truly struck. Yet the tension persists — an ironic choreography of failed aggression.
The work explores the connection between masculinity, power, and violence, questioning where shame disappears once violence becomes legitimized. Art historically, it resonates with depictions such as Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1480–1490), where instruments penetrate bodies, and Francisco Goya’s Fight with Cudgels (1820–1823), in which two men attack each other with clubs in a swamp.
2017 - Butt’s, Bats and Balls (sculpture)
After completing the 3D animation, it became clear how warm and even humorous the video felt — a striking contrast to its underlying theme. This tension inspired a spatial translation: a sculpture that evokes the opposite effect.
The form is entirely white, marked by red traces of violence. The components were first cast in molds using rigid polyurethane foam and then assembled into a single sculptural whole. Where the animation is playful, the object remains still and confrontational — the bloodless becomes bodily.
2017 - Linking to Nationalism
In 2017, the project gained a new layer. The animation was expanded with national flags, referencing the ways in which nations throughout history have used violence to gain and maintain power.
Three camera angles made it possible to present the animation simultaneously on three screens. The photographs show a conceptual visualization of this idea, in which the flags become symbols of collective identity and aggression.
