Gut Theory


Shannon Fitzgerald, curator: Gut Theory is a stop motion animation that explores commodity and cultural consumerism. In a linear narrative format Tara Najd Ahmadi presents three powerful vignettes in which hand-made assemblage puppets are engaged in various acts of consuming. The Characters act out their desire for more (information, knowledge, money, power and things) in constructed and illustrated architectural and domestic settings that distort space and time. Within these shifting dioramas, protagonists literally digest currency, the written word, images and media through the mouth, stomach and large intestines until they are transformed into their own post-consumer waste. The delightfully crude and awkward movements of the human puppets appear at first, as happy naïve participants within a larger proposal, but within the earnest theatrics, the evolving subtext suggests that we are all players complicit in the global reality that consumer consumption is an ever growing and threatening social, cultural, environmental and political problematic. With humor and subtle critique-made both poignant and palatable through childlike rendering and near comical gesturing lent by the animation process- Ahmadi has created an innovative visual strategy for addressing a complex global conversation with sensitivity and conviction, but without assult."