One California crime reporter invented a new American Gothic art form: the Die-O-Rama. These are tiny art projects depicting acts of mayhem in everyday life.
They feature corpses, shallow graves and improbable characters, like the gunman in a pope costume, the decapitated man sitting next to his severed head and a guy dispatching his victim with a lawn mower.
For example, a mowing incident:
I love the origin story:
Abigail Goldman was wandering the Internet when she came across the model train website that changed her life. She noticed all the miniature figures were engaged in wholesome activities — waving to strangers, helping neighbors.
Then she had a dark thought: Maybe those characters could be made to do violent, unspeakable things. They could populate tiny, twisted dioramas of her own design, snow-globe-sized worlds of murder and mayhem.
And the intrusion into daily life:
Goldman is an Infocult natural:
"I said, 'Oh, look at all the little people! Wouldn't it be fun to have them hacking each other in half?'" said Goldman, 30, a former Las Vegas Sun crime reporter...
Much of the madness involves gardening tools. "You can do so many things with a pair of hedge trimmers," said Goldman, whose blond librarian-like braids belie a worldview that's Goth teenager. "Lawn and garden tools are ghastly and horrifying and fraught with danger. They're all horrible and they're in your house, waiting to decapitate someone."
Even better, she knows about clowns:
Previous Infocult posts on deadly dioramas: Christmastime, the demon barber of Peep Street.
(thanks to Thomas Burkdall)
Comments