Here at the Daily Dot, we swap GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you in. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
This excerpt from Japanese collage artist Takahiro Kimura’s video “Kiss“, from the book/DVD combo e-motion, might put you off kissing altogether. The alchemy of human attraction is not comfortable viewing for innocent bystanders, however much fun it may be for participants. The 5202 notes on Tumblr attest to a high level of fascination or repulsion. Or maybe both.
Kimura’s style is analytical, breaking the man and woman down into composite, mobile, and clashing/meshing mechanical parts but ultimately—as you can see in the full video—sympathetic. On his website, his Artist’s Statement is revealing:
“Though I am quite interested in various aspects and contradictions which people have inside, I attempt not to think about them in the stage of creation. I’d rather devote my attention to force of line and exquisite balance of form, mass, composition and color so that sense of existence of my works, which are inclusive of said factors, can stand out.
If I hold up the emotion of human being, which is so complicated and elusive, as theme of my work, the work will be unable to catch up with the emotion and the work will be undistinguished. Therefore, in a state of selfless, I command not feeling but solely my aesthetic sense and attempt to create my work.
And then if you feel some complicated emotions of human beings are expressed out of my work [faces], it might be projections of what you have inside. The broken faces might be mirrors to reflect your emotions.:
We’re challenged to believe that the artist is devoid of emotion when portraying an action as heavy with meaning and nuance as a kiss. Viewed objectively, the action is just a certain physical act, yet ultimately the video seems to convey both the ridiculousness and the sweetness of the human condition. Or is that just me looking in the mirror?
