/ Exhibitions /
Statement
We puppets belong in a world that exists behind a camera and in front of a green screen, showing you the brain of Nyah, an autistic girl who is trying to navigate a universe not built for her. As Goldblatt said, “ventriloquism is the occasion for letting strange voices speak”. We speak for Nyah, our strange voice.
Our final show, Puppets (Relatively) Say It All, cover Nyah’s thoughts about the future, societal expectations, EVIL AI, and the capitalist agenda. Our performances take the form of seven short videos, with the hope to get it all out before the world inevitably ends.
Certain (Uncertain) was the first to be displayed in an audience’s presence. We discuss Nyah’s dread concerning the linear life and an ambiguous future. Masahiro Mori’s essay The Uncanny Valley (2012) explains that, as puppets, we evoke unease as nearly human figures. Hence, our uncanny nature further exaggerates this discomfort, as well as a maniacal laughter to end the episode.
The thought bubbles projecting the internal lives of Laurie Simmons’ puppets in Café of the Inner Mind (1994) influenced the picture in picture we used in The Dream. This episode talks about a dream Nyah had where she was murdered by her manager (gasp!). We replicated this dream, with significantly less gore, in a large bubble above Little Nyah. Throughout the episode, we decipher the meaning of the dream, concluding that Nyah seems miserable at her job and perhaps she should quit (she still hasn’t). Perhaps being miserable is worth it if it for an almost liveable wage?
On the concept of capitalism (money!), we listened to the album The Mocking Stars (2025) by Lausse the Cat. The music follows a cat navigating societal expectations, emphasising how the capitalist agenda is evil but so easy to fall victim to. In parallel, Doom (Scrolling)sees Little Nyah stuck in social media consumption, drawn away from her real life. She is a victim of the times. To make her feel better about herself, we shame those who make the rich richer in Do You Hate Humankind?, a collection of satire advertisements for AI. Nyah (rightfully so) despises generative AI, and she is tired of watching her family and friends’ brains deteriorate. Whilst nothing she says to them quite goes in; this is our small attempt at showing them what fools they are.
Leaning into the absurdities of the characters by manipulating her voice and playing with costume, Alex Bag’s Untitled Fall 95’ (1995) is a satire critiquing social standards of art students. In exploring stereotypes surrounding counselling, we used similar techniques in Virtual Therapy, amplifying the absurd voice of the therapist. The theatrically mundane conversation of two dolls in Laurie Simmons’ The Music of Regret (2006) inspired the character interaction within our therapy session, with Little Nyah rambling about her apprehension towards change and The Man spouting buzzwords back at her. By the end, she feels no better about her situation.
Staging our videos to not only replicate Nyah’s mental state but also societal overconsumption has become increasingly relevant, with the desire to have the audience feel trapped and overwhelmed (HAHAHAHA) by surrounding them with excessive visual information and noise! In Phillipe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s (2005) collaboration, they created puppets of themselves and had them occupy the exhibition space as stand-ins, existing to speak for the artists. We do the same for Nyah, representing her in a space where she may feel small.
That’s all folks! Thanks for watching!
* Disclaimer: this body of text was written by a puppet hivemind. They are quite silly.
References
Bag, Alex. Untitled Fall 95’. 1995. Colour video, sound; 57 min. Electronic Arts Intermix, New York, USA.
Goldblatt, David. Art and Ventriloquism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Lausse the Cat. The Mocking Stars. Velvet Blues, 2025, Streaming Platforms.
Mori, Masahiro. “The Uncanny Valley.” Translated by Karl F. MacDorman and Norri Kageki. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 19, no. 2 (2012): 98–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811.
Parrerno, Phillipe & Tiravanija Rirkrit. Untitled. 2005. Black and white 16mm film. 12 min. 5 puppets each with ceramic head, feet and hands, synthetic hair, clothes, stuffing. New York, USA.
Simmons, Laurie. Café of the Inner Mind. 1994. Collection of colour photographs. USA.
Simmons, Laurie. The Music of Regret. 2006. 35mm film (transferred to HD CAM). 40 min. USA.