Live Pelt, 2003
“That little girl was dead, and in her place stood a cold-blooded killer.”
The final installment of Bibiota, Live Pelt is a funny, but dark narrative about the transformation of 64 used Tickle Me Elmo dolls into a coat that giggles and quivers when touched. It is a story of machine intelligence, capitalist greed, lost innocence, and transmutation. The exhibition looks at the 1996 Elmo craze through the lens of America’s historic fur trade and asks “is it ethical to use Elmo as a creative medium?”
In the creation of Live Pelt, Heaton assumes eight different personalities with an intensity verging on mania —ranging from practical to glamorous to humorous to terrifying— evoking the sort of mercurial mood that results from trauma. Her dominant personality, The Fashionista, drives an alchemical process to create a magnificent garment fit for the runway, suicide bomber, or looney bin.
Portrait of the Fashionista, 2003. Digital C-print (EP), 29 1/2 x 28 1/2 x 2. Photo by Tom LeGoff and make-up by Tamah Krinsky
“The witch is at once female divinity, female ferocity, and female transgression. She is all and she is one. ”
Heaton wrestles with Tickle Me Elmo, loving the plush doll but destroying it; curious about the electronic anatomy but fetishizing it. She objectifies her media as only a female artist can. Her Elmo coat could almost be categorized as fashionable commentary on the fur trade, but the giggling and quivering electronics give it another dimension of weirdness.
Excerpt from The Debutante of Live Pelt, 2003. Video by Shambhavi Kaul
Heaton’s hyper-intellectual style combined with her enveloping, vibrating “Surrogate” suggest neurodivergence, similar to Temple Grandin’s “Hug Machine” for people with autism. There is also Shakti energy at work: the cartoon eyes of the Fashionista’s death mask and Elmo merkin signify a feminine cycle of creation and destruction.
Video excerpts from the Live Pelt documentary (videography by Shambhavi Kaul), 2002-2003
Desecration and fetishism are consistent throughout the narrative, which relies heavily on the historic precedent of the American fur trade. The Trapper collects Elmos through eBay; The Industrialist performs the skinning; and The Taxidermist stuffs and mounts their heads. The Alchemist solders the electronic viscera and seeks clues to the mystery of life. Other characters, The Sociopath, The Debutante, and The Fashionista, interact with the coat and its accessories at various stages in The Surrogate’s development. Btsy Rss alters the American flag to the tune of De-Star Spangled Banner, a painfully slow rendition of our national anthem performed by Pamela Z. Heaton plays some of these roles in a documentary video by Shambhavi Kaul.
Embracing and critiquing the information glut caused by computer-based media, Heaton’s narrative also includes The Yearbook of Live Pelt, a 197 page book chronicling the 64 previously-owned Elmo dolls that she “trapped” through eBay auction. The Sears Portrait Series, featuring 16 young girls in store-bought Elmo costumes, innocently observes this painful transmutation of Elmo from childhood friend to victim of adult neurosis.
The Debutante of Live Pelt, 2003. Digital C-print (EP) 18 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 1 1/2
“A teddy bear does not depend upon mechanics to give him the semblance of life, he is loved — and therefore he lives.”