Last year, we showed you the comically macabre “Animatus” sculpture series by Korean artist Hyungkoo Lee, which depicted cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny as grotesque skeletons. The latest nightmare project from Lee, entitled “The Objectuals,” goes the science fiction route by using an oversized, custom-designed helmet contraption to transform the wearer into a weirdly-distorted alien invader.
Images: Hyungkoo Lee
The complex helmet can be fitted with interchangeable lenses, all of which magnify and/or distort the wearer's facial features in specific and horrific ways... which is particularly creepy when the wearer isn't entirely human to begin with, as in the case of the unfortunate subject below.
Image: Hyungkoo Lee
The resulting photographs, some of which were recently curated online by art & design magazine Hi-Fructose, emphasize the key role of the face in our day-to-day social interactions... but to me, it's a pretty effective demonstration of how uncomfortably easy it is to twist our everyday expressions and gestures into something threatening and disorienting.
Images: Hyungkoo Lee
You can see more of the spooky “Objectuals” series at Hi-Fructose, and find many more galleries of Lee's disturbing and fascinating work on his blog.