Elijah "Bean" Knoles 2026

Abstract

Honk Honk! Who's there? Is an interactive clown installation and performance exploring absurdity. In art (and likely in general), absurdity is essential in resisting propriety, developing a sense of self, and gaining perspective on the world. Absurdity is playful, gross, paradoxical, and ridiculous. What can we express with absurdity? What can it hide? What can it reveal? Why might someone laugh at a horror movie, or cry when being tickled? When does laughing at something that's not funny translate into insanity? Where do absurdity and abjection intersect? Where does humor collide with fear? The Riddley Diddler will be there to ask you these questions. This work is an externalization of the ways that absurdity serves to help cope with, and better understand, complex human experiences such as pain, fear, desire, and transgression. Each of these pieces is a personification (or rather, a clownification) of the tension between humour and sadness, fear and sexual desire, private masked inner turmoil and public performance. An expression of absurdity in art can turn scary things into something new and tangible. More tolerable, or maybe even funny. Laughter is a vessel for this, and inherently part of absurdity. Laughter in relation to fear also directly relates to people's varying perceptions of clowns. Within this, I discuss play as a coping mechanism as well as the way in which overusing comedy can be connected to psychology. Absurdity is found within paradox, laughter and fear are oximoronic. Through the process of making these sculptures I’ve been shown the vast amount that absurdity and working with play can release the subconscious mind into the conscious mind. I have found an unexpected freedom in the manic unpreparedness of my work. Creative destruction pushes against the restrictions of apathy. Absurdity is inherently in-ordinary, and there is minimal order found within my work or my process. I’ve found the performance aspect essential in achieving this chaos, as well as showing a relationship between all of this and vulnerability. These clown creatures are parts of me, they give my mind a voice and me a mask to reveal myself behind.