Collection
Six Ways to Kill (2016)
Six Ways To Kill explores the idea of experience as art object by displaying two-dimensional vulnerable works followed by performing works through a veterans viewpoint to expose the feelings of the subjects and bring the audience into the experience of the art.
Six Ways to Kill (2016) by Michael Armstrong
Background
Six ways to Kill includes five larger than life graphite drawings of men and women standing unprotected and in utter vulnerability. The gaze of the drawn subjects is submissive, their bodies vulnerable, the major arteries the subject of deadly strikes visible yet unexplained. Within the work, the body is physically present but increasingly becomes ‘self-aware’ after audience has seen the drawings and then further context is provided.
The content of the performance art component includes methods to kill effectively with a knife in close combat. It was derived from the personal material Armstrong had developed and delivered to soldiers during his military career. The works are re-constituted as a result of the performance art. They are reinterpreted through the experiences of the audience with visuals almost pulsating with anticipation to the newly attuned awareness of the audience.
Inspiration
Six ways to Kill 2016, explores the how the mind and imagination impacts people who are exposed to dangerous knowledge and content. In Armstrongs case, veterans, having to be exposed to knowledge and acts and having to carry this information forever.
Exhibit
The drawings are presented without adornment or explanation beyond their names, leaving the audience free to draw their own conclusions. The viewing immediately followed by a performative component presented in the presence of the drawings.
The content includes how killing drills are described and rehearsed. The visceral components of blood, arteries and vulnerable organs are exposed despite remaining invisible to view. They are imagined, explored and viewed with fascination, revulsion and fear as the audience visualise the effects of the techniques they are learning; a fictional but nonetheless powerful imagining. Once exposed, the audience becomes ‘complicit and certified’, having ‘lived’ a story and is now responsible as holders of ‘dangerous’ knowledge.
A small studio for brave art
Mike Armstrong creates and teaches art from Mandala Studio a studio-gallery and wellbeing space in Canberra, Australia.