"Home Invader brings the minute into glaring focus with human-sized insects engaged in mundane domestic routines. Looking in the eyes of the typically tiny co-inhabitants of our planet, it could be hard not to wonder whose existence it is that truly serves a purpose. Whimsical in execution and sobering on contemplation, Buckland’s work is unavoidably enjoyable."
-Kim Wall 2017
Insects have provided equal parts fascination and terror throughout human history featuring in myth and legend from ancient times to present day. The science-fiction boom of post-war 1950s Hollywood was flooded with insect invaders of all shapes and sizes, from the atomic ants of Them! (1954), the gigantic killer scorpions of The Black Scorpion (1957) to the body horror of science gone awry in The Fly (1958). Many have interpreted insect movies of this era as symbolic manifestations of Cold War anxieties surrounding nuclear weapons, atomic warfare and Communism.
I’ve taken these insect invasion movies and turned them into animation via the process of rotoscope. Rotoscoping is tracing over the top of film frames or photographs to produce realistic action. Home Invader brings the minute into glaring focus. You, the viewer, have been shrunk down and placed into the living room of a human-sized cockroach. You have become the intruder and meet face to face with an enlarged member of the insect community. You are asked to consider whose existence it is that truly serves a purpose.
Home Invader
Cardboard, silicone, found objects, acrylic + enamel paint
115 x 95 x 100cm
2017 - 2022
The Frightening Second Return of the Giant Shrieking Crawling Mutant Insect Horror Created by Mad Science and Atoms Gone Wild in the Centre of the Earth (don't be afraid to scream it helps to relieve the tension)
Digital video
2022
-Kim Wall 2017
Insects have provided equal parts fascination and terror throughout human history featuring in myth and legend from ancient times to present day. The science-fiction boom of post-war 1950s Hollywood was flooded with insect invaders of all shapes and sizes, from the atomic ants of Them! (1954), the gigantic killer scorpions of The Black Scorpion (1957) to the body horror of science gone awry in The Fly (1958). Many have interpreted insect movies of this era as symbolic manifestations of Cold War anxieties surrounding nuclear weapons, atomic warfare and Communism.
I’ve taken these insect invasion movies and turned them into animation via the process of rotoscope. Rotoscoping is tracing over the top of film frames or photographs to produce realistic action. Home Invader brings the minute into glaring focus. You, the viewer, have been shrunk down and placed into the living room of a human-sized cockroach. You have become the intruder and meet face to face with an enlarged member of the insect community. You are asked to consider whose existence it is that truly serves a purpose.
Home Invader
Cardboard, silicone, found objects, acrylic + enamel paint
115 x 95 x 100cm
2017 - 2022
The Frightening Second Return of the Giant Shrieking Crawling Mutant Insect Horror Created by Mad Science and Atoms Gone Wild in the Centre of the Earth (don't be afraid to scream it helps to relieve the tension)
Digital video
2022