Mr. Misang study

Mr. Misang is one of my new favorite artists. Right now he has an awesome series of pieces called modern life is rubbish where he satires the overstimulated pornographic culture of our world. I picked a couple of my favorite pieces to break down and I thought this one would be a great one to start with because it has both religious, technological and sexual ideas being expressed in some interesting ways that illuminate how society sells sex to us.

The figure that is our focal point looks like a hybrid mix between the Egyptian god Anubis and the Hindu god Kali. Anubis is known for using a scale to weigh the soul of man by placing his heart on one scale and a feather on the other. Kali on the other hand is a god who represents the ceaseless march towards death and the eradication of the universe.

Anubis

Kali

To me this God like figure represents the concept that we entertain ourselves to death through constant stimulation of which porn is a version of that. But if you look behind the figure we see a one eyed black monster that contrasts with the god which gives the piece a tone that makes us feel like not everything is right. What we are being sold is simultaneously a trojan horse for our downfall. Sure these people are being entertained but they don't know the cost of it yet.

But its not a direct translation of these gods because  we don't see her weighing anyone's soul or carrying weapons in her arms. Instead she has a guy floating above her in a projected bubble coming from her head. Then in her hands is what looks like a pink foam like substance that could possibly be the feminine representation of love or eggs since the way it is drawn is very similar to the way the sperm is drawn around the on the hand on the right. Could she be measuring the soul of the man in her head and breaking his essence down into this pink substance?

 Another set of interesting details is she is either in the process of abortion or is connected by umbilical cord to something else we cant see. Whatever it is the sex she is having with the figure on the bottom wont come to anything. Also notice that the figure she is riding is dressed exactly the way the other people in the streets are.

Other details to note in the image is how he uses both the language of sex we have today but also easy to understand imagery that suggests the topic and makes us think about it without actually drawing a sexual image. Couple of examples includes the hand signal of the finger going in a hole motion on the left and this contrasts with  the arm on the right which has a white ghostly sperm flying around it obviously implying masturbation.

We see every sexual innuendo being shown off and as the public fills the streets and we see little iconic details of sex without it being overly sexual everywhere. A way he expresses this theme is through the vocabulary of the internet. Everywhere you look it says:"FREE", "REAL ecstasy", "LIVE", "NSFW". But none of this is real, none of this is "live" instead its a product that is packaged and sold to us. Mr. Misang reminds us that its the fakeness of this vocabulary we find so displeasing and how it alienates us from our own environment.