The theme of these three pieces of digital remix is written on the picture—Life and Eternity. They are listed here as an opposite and conflicting pair. Here “life” refers to the comparatively fragile life of human beings, and it also represents a real life which has breath, feelings and enthusiasm to the world. On the other hand, “eternity” refers the immortal life of vampire beings, and it conveys their endless struggle with the darkness around them and inside of their hearts.
“Eternal life” is a common topic in vampire literature and movies. Immortal life adds a mysterious mask to vampires, which is the main temptation to most of human victims and readers. For example, in Bram Stroker's Dracula, the mental patient played by Tom Waits became one of Dracula’s loyal followers for his desire for eternal life. And some people will even trade their soul for the undead body. After they get the kiss from vampires, they will have to abandon the sun and stay in the darkness forever. Moreover, they have to sacrifice others’ lives to survive. (But there is a saying that the oldest generation of vampires are powerful enough that they don’t have to live on blood. And they can even walk in the sun like a human. Here I will focus on those vampires who are not that powerful to defend the sunshine.)
However, the immortal life is also a problem for some vampires with a human heart. For example, Louis in Interview with the Vampire, was always suffering from his immortal life and the behavior of killing people. A worse example is the mentor of Kei in Moon Child; he got so tired of endless and hiding living that he went to the beach and burned himself in a sunrise. However, there is indeed someone who enjoyed their vampire life, such as Lestat who would be the most famous vampire created by Anne Rice. He was like a charming prince in upper class parties, and a play boy with girls (Interview with the Vampire), and he turned to be a rock star in modern society (Queen of the Damned). Wherever he goes, whenever he lives, he will make sure that he is enjoying the immortal life. That may be a fairly positive attitude towards life for vampires.
These three pictures aim to reflect the life situation and life attitude of vampires and some of their victims. Some of them enjoyed the eternity in cost of taking others’ life; some of them struggled with hardship in the darkness; some of them did the sacrifice for the loved. And they are various facets of vampirism—under control of the bloody red.
About the Design
Picture 1
Key words: desire, fears, power
The background is from the poster of Bram Stroker's Dracula, and the man and the woman in the front is Lestat and his victim from Interview with the Vampire. In the original poster there is Dracula holding his bride Mina, and the figures around them provides the background of their love story. Accordingly, in this picture, Lestat is placed in the center which makes connections between these two kinds of vampire stories. As a whole this picture is telling a story about desire, fears and power.
In the center of the top, there is an angry devil’s head sculpture, whose outstanding teeth hint his aggressiveness and danger to living creatures. That is the signifier of dark power. And the figures at the two sides of the devil are representatives of the ones under control of that vampirism power. In the center of the picture, Lestat is going to attack the helpless woman in his arm. When he is getting close to her bared neck, he gave a glazing look at the viewer, which conveying messages to people outside of the world in the picture. His left hand was risen up, and it looks like that he may stretch out his arm to drag the viewer at any time. Here fears rise from that atmosphere.
Lestat is known as an attractive, cold-blood vampire killer. In Interview with the Vampire, not only he took people’s lives, but also did he play with them and make fun of them before their death. He put their blood in chalice, tasted it and enjoyed it. However, the women did not know his cruelty. They just saw his charming appearance, his golden hair, his blue eyes and his mysterious smile. As a result, they got into his brace without hesitation, because they had a crush on him, a strong desire on him. On the other hand, Lestat also had desire on the women, on their fresh blood, their beating hearts, and their energetic young lives.
In general, the whole picture is under the red curtain of blood from top down, which can be considered as a representation of vampirism—the desire for blood, the desire for sacrifice, the desire of eternal devil spirit.
Picture 2
Key words: sacrifice, love, temptation
The picture is aimed to tell a story about sacrifice, love and temptation.
The woman in the left side is Mina, Dracula’s bride in Bram Stroker's Dracula. And the woman with blood tears is a random picture found in Internet. They are also under the red curtain of blood, which hints it has the same theme of vampirism. Since Mina is in the left part of the picture, she is presented as the “given” fact in this picture. (Kress & Leeuwen 2006, 180) And the face at right is the “new” which serves as specific explanation to the given fact.
In Bram Stroker's Dracula, Mina continued the love of four hundred years with Dracula with the cost of her soul and anything as a human. She abandoned her friends, her fiancé, her religion to be the bride of the dark prince, walking with him in the darkness forever.
She is a totally different part of vampire stories, which is used to be filled with the fighting between hunters and preys. She sacrificed her life and her soul on her will, and she didn’t join the evil to pursue immortal life but eternal love. On the other hand, the most powerful vampire, Dracula, did not treat her as other women victims. Instead, he let her drink blood from his chest where is closest to his heart. He granted her the power to dominate the beast and storm. At the end of the film, he even sacrificed his eternal life to set Mina free. It not surprising that film is called “a love song of vampires.”
On the other hand, Mina is also a victim of vampire’s temptation. She is enchanted by Dracula’s sincere and passionate speech and action which convinced her it is worth sacrificing anything of hers for their love. The blood tears represent her regrets for her wrong choice. The shining blade beside hints she was physically and psychologically hurt in the story, so she cried. Both of Mina and the face are starring at the viewers, which develops an interactive relationship between them and the viewers. And there they are producing a temptation to people appreciate them, which is reflected in term of beautiful things in the picture, such as Mina’s wide innocent eyes, her gorgeous dress, and the fresh red thick lips, the pretty red eyes.
Picture 3
Key words: recluse, power, fears
The creature hiding behind the pale hands is the oldest vampire, Dracula, from Bram Stroker's Dracula. He is the main character in various vampire theme movies, in which he is considered as the first and most powerful vampire. And in this picture, the decorative pattern on his clothes shows he is from the ancient age and he has the blood of nobles.
He is damned to live in the darkness forever, living on human’s blood. He is a scaring and damned creature; he brings evil to the earth; he brings death to human beings; he is the representative of the dark power. With the sunrise as the opposite of Dracula, this picture aims to represent the recluse, fear and power of vampires.
Due his fear to sunshine, vampires have to stay in the dark, and wait for nights to feed themselves, which makes them recluses away from human society. In this picture, with hands covering his face, he appears as a recluse to the viewers. The red curtain of blood is fragmented under the impact of the sunrise. The blood fog is being banished to the side of Dracula, who is also suffering from the sunshine and the stare from viewers. In this picture, Dracula’s power is being diminished when exposed to the sun and attentions.
In the left part of the picture, as the sun rises, the blood fog is cleared away from the earth, which represent the darkness in vulnerable to the sunshine, the immortal life of vampires is vulnerable to eternal sunshine, brightness beats darkness, good beats evil.
The project aims to discuss and represent vampire’s appearance, life and spirit. And this digital remix serves to reflect the thoughts and spiritual part of those damned creatures. In vampire’s world, power, fear and desire are mixed together; love, temptation, and sacrifice are hard to distinguish. Those characteristics of vampires’ life and thoughts provide great imagination space for literature and movie creations, which will be further discussed in the film subproject.
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