Flower Dogs
Flower Dogs is a quantity of battery-operated toys decorated with plastic flowers. This project creates variety through the hybridity of plastic flowers to display the diversity of mass-produced flowers. I make flowers in various ways; cutting, rearranging, collaging, and coloring. The unrealistic arrangement on each dog characterizes its individuality as a mechanical toy.
As an interactive art, Flower Dogs is installed and exhibited for the viewers to walk through the dogs. They bark and walk at different paces to meet and bump upon each other, generating unexpected events. The mechanical toys are programmed to keep barking and walking once turned on until the battery dies. By unleashing them in the area of the viewers, the dogs’ vigorous gestures are displayed in a more intimate way.
Dogs are typically referenced as an animal deeply rooted in our society as a well behaved, royal, and intimate member that needs our love and care. Such portrayal projects my own identity as a Korean woman. Growing up in a collective culture, I was naturally educated to be passive yet behave in a cute and nice attitude, as a strategy in life. The colorful flowers mask the dogs’ passiveness by creating an artificial facade that portrays their desire to be loved. But truly, everyone loves the colorful and cute Flower Dogs, indifferent to know more of what lies beyond.
