Michael Etoll

Mike Etoll presents himself as both a spirited showman and a master of visual hucksterism, employing a blend of images, sounds, and the haze of hair gel that obscures them. Rather than deeming himself a filmmaker, he emerges as a meticulously crafted persona-a visionary of the random and superficial-who artfully assembles blurred images into a semblance of artistic order for mere pennies on the dollar. He breathes life into inexpensive party favors, animating rubber grotesques while etching laser-like holes into plastic UFOs, accompanied by the serenade of crickets, distant cat meows, and the melodic chorus of frogs inhaling crab-apple blossoms with their eyes closed all summer long. This unfolds through curtains sewn by his mother, reflecting the delusions of late-night local television bathed in blue radiation, reminiscent of the peace and tranquility he found among a cluttered childhood room. In this space, adorned with museum mummy postcards, MAD Magazines, construction paper cow tongues, and 3-D movie posters, he honed his skills in animation using a Super 8 camera, guided by his father, Joseph, during the formative year of 1975.

Dwelling in the murky depths of semi-visible spirits, a realm teeming with peculiar rubber rodents, plastic figurines produced in Japan, and dime-store skulls, he utilized broken cameras and layered on latex to create contributions to obscure films-some feature-length, others cinematic aberrations of dubious artistic merit. His motives were clear: this was solely for profit, marking him as the quintessential master sell-out.

In a world where quality remains frustratingly elusive, we find ourselves confronted by an unending row of drab, faceless houses, haunted by monstrous memories of humanity's grotesque facets. Amidst the shuffling of weary, downtrodden figures, we are compelled to forge artwork and, in doing so, learn to savor the taste of macaroni!