Into the Rabbit Hole
Artist Statement
“Alice in Wonderland” is not only a literary work, but an almost other-worldly collective part of the human imagination which has captivated the world.My first introduction into Lewis Carroll’s imaginative world was through the Disney adaptation, Alice in Wonderland, which featured the wile Cheshire Cat, the cooky mad hatter, and the Queen who sings “off with their heads.” The story was that of a beautiful Alice, who tumbled down a rabbit hole to hear tales within stories from the oddest of narrators, such as a dodo bird and a smoking caterpillar.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I read the original novel by Lewis Carroll, followed by Alice through the Looking Glass. What I had realized from reading these texts were how, unlike their movie adaptations, despite the nonsensical scenarios and characters of the novel there were incredibly complex underlying political, philosophical, and moral themes. Moreover, the story itself could be read as a series of satyrs, especially ringing true for the court scene towards the end of the novel, with the King, the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter—regarding ridiculous trivialities such as the signing of documents and the presenting of evidence.
The British sense of the nonsensical is something that has enveloped and engulfed the whole of my imagination from my research into this whole new world of imagination. Nonsense, as in the way Paddington the Bear and Winnie the Pooh came to be, the way Gulliver could travel to meet the tiniest people, the biggest giants, and a planet of crooked necked people who gaze up at the skies.
In my research I looked through the G. Edward Cassady, M.D., and Margaret Elizabeth Cassady, R.N., and Lewis Carroll Digital Library Collection. There, some interesting documents I found were Lewis Carroll’s personal letters, addressed to such people as his publisher and a woman who handled his statistics(?) whom he had a particularly playful relationship with. His sense of humor and ridiculous attitude towards life (not taking anything too seriously and exaggerating minute circumstances into fanciful tales) is evident in his interactions with his peers. He made a remark in his letter addressed to Anne Symonds (found in the Cassady Digital Collection) something along the lines of, “Don’t send me Christmas cards because they are of no use! They will go around and around the world till God-forbid the original sender receives the card again!” (Lewis Carroll, letter, 1891-11-09, to Anne Symonds). Not only is his wonderful sense of humor, imagination, and whimsy self-evident in his recorded first-hand documents, his love for children is also a common theme. In the Cassady Digital Collection is also “An Easter greeting to every child who loves “Alice”, 1876 (copy 2).” The way in which he writes and addresses his little audience is such an endearing document to read, and illuminates the heartwarming love and thought behind Carroll’s words throughout his children’s stories.
Through my research I also found that Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and a lover of philosophy, logic, and games. Documents of Carroll’s supposed inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland include that of Alice Liddell’s personal statement recalling Carroll’s bluish grey eyes and upright posture. A deeper exploration into his life illuminated a deeper appreciation for what he was attempting to accomplish in his works, which was a combination of the teaching of higher level philosophy and cognitive thinking intertwined with pure nonsense and madness to create a quizzical paradox which entertains all ages.
My submission is a work of mixed media collaging, 3D sculpture and design, and installation art. The work is a modern re-telling of the iconic scene in which Alice falls down the rabbit hole—the catalyst for her adventures in Wonderland.
“Into the Rabbit Hole” explores the quizzical world Alice would have fallen into, in our contemporary society. A world of quizzical memoranda, waste, and consumerism. Unlike the original Wonderland she would not find a world inspired by and of nature, but rather a hovel home littered about with meaningless numbers, words, and symbols—and most importantly, a Television that is always on.
Themes of constant stimulation, and this idea of a constant bombardment of information that is essentially useless (consumerism) is prevalent in this piece:
A coral-red colored rabbit, sewn out of cotton fibers, is sitting on a couch watching TV in the living room. The living room’s wallpaper is made out of newspaper and mixed media collaging, and the room is furnished with a couch, lamp, TV, and directly in between the couch and TV is a small coffee table with a telephone. The TV Screen is seen running through the flashing lights reflected through the rabbit’s face. Mumbled words and static is heard coming from the screen, and the rabbit continues sitting slouched and flipping through channels.
This unnamed Rabbit was a strange sort of child. Quite antisocial, quite awkward, quite silent, quite quiet. He didn’t have many. He mostly kept to himself.
We are at the present. Unnamed Rabbit has no job, no family (not really), no friends, no girlfriend (never had one), and no reason to live. No life. His parents died leaving him enough money from their life insurance to allow him to live comfortably—but what does he do with that wealth? Keep making the down payments on his parents’ house and watching TV and home.
And he buys things—curious things. Things that promise to change his life… to make him feel something. To make things better. To pave a new future… but they never work. Not really.
The Unnamed Rabbit watches TV in his parents’ home. Isolated from the world outside, and from the world around him. His only connection to the outside world, or to anybody else for that matter, is his television screen. On 24/7.
Some elements of the original novel is included within the work, such as how the tumble down the rabbit hole continuously speeds up until our supposed “Alice” reaches the end. Other elements are simply a product of nonsense, one which seems to play an integral part in the British imagination. Certainly Carroll’s imagination and universe of madness.