A decade in the past, pc scientist Tim Berners-Lee (aka the inventor of the world large net) was requested what had proved probably the most revelatory use of the web. His response was succinct: “Kittens”.
Adorable fluffy felines symbolize a digital lingua franca, saturating our day by day lives through viral clips, memes, emojis, GIFs and filters. Kittens may be traded for puppies, infants, starry-eyed sloths, maybe even cartoon meals, however all of those varieties specific a wider fact: cuteness can not be dismissed as a infantile diversion; it has change into a cultural drive and international obsession.
Cuteness calls for critical consideration — and it conjures up a serious new exhibition at London’s Somerset House.
“I’ve never come across a subject as rich as this; it’s so multi-layered,” says Claire Catterall, curator of Cute. “Cuteness embraces a kind of femininity, but it also embraces otherness in a way that wider society does not. That allows for people to be anything they want. In recent years, it’s been used in interesting and surprising ways, especially by artists and musicians describing their own mode of existence.”
We not solely see cuteness; we really feel it deeply. It is arguably primal, triggering a dopamine rush that suggests an innate urge to guard the young and vulnerable. It additionally has a fuzzy historical past, regardless of the burgeoning tutorial subject of “cute studies”. The English-language phrase is initially a contraction of “acute” (ie, shrewd or sharp), and its that means as endearing or engaging emerged through the nineteenth century.
The exhibition explores a broad worldview, significantly through the transnational rise of Japanese kawaii popular culture. Kawaii roughly interprets as “loveable” and its aesthetic (rounded, babyish, blushing options) will be discovered all over the place from comics to couture trend. As the US-based tutorial Kumiko Sato has famous: “The Japanese idea of cuteness in fact emphasises the sense of pathos that the powerless and helpless object inspires in the observer’s mind . . . kawaii suggests a pity for things loved and protected.”
Such conflicting feelings gas the sprawling, seemingly irrepressible drive of Cute, and Somerset House supplies a suitably labyrinthine venue. When I go to the exhibition, I stumble first into its glitterball-lit Hello Kitty “disco”, devoted to the feline kawaii icon conceived 50 years in the past by Japanese firm Sanrio.
The character’s easy, immediately recognisable options and bow have remained unchanged over the many years as she developed right into a billion-dollar franchise (analysed in Christine R Yano’s 2013 guide Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek throughout the Pacific).
An exhibit of Hello Kitty memorabilia whisks me again to my very own girlhood. I’ve lengthy tidied away my juvenile collections of comparable toys and cutesy stationery — however I might by no means convey myself to desert them.
The present is filled with beguiling tones and textures; arcade cupboards are crafted to resemble candy-coloured frogs and even the exhibit captions are lined with flock “skin” like that discovered on Sylvanian Families toys.
There are additionally hints of one thing extra unsettling. Beautiful-nightmarish creatures inhabit the luminescent prints of Ram Han (“Save Our Souls”, 2022) and the florid canvases of Rachel Maclean (“!step on no petS Step on no pets!”, 2021). Mark Leckey’s movie a couple of unicorn plushie forged adrift (“Dazzleddark”, 2023), which additionally starred in his recent Turner Contemporary exhibition, is each enchanting and eerie. Cosima von Bonin’s toy-sculpture “Killer Whale With Long Eyelashes” (2018) is slumped over a chair, seemingly crushed by its personal cuddly heft.
Artworks are organised in 5 “clusters” with titles corresponding to Cry Baby and Sugar-Coated Pill. Each part options an accompanying video by artist Bart Seng Wen Long, who can also be co-founder of the curatorial platform Kawaii Agency.
“When I was growing up in Singapore, cuteness pervaded every part of everyday life — not just cartoons, but also in marketing, and by the government to impart political campaigns,” explains Seng. “You start realising that cuteness has this strange duality; it’s so vulnerable, but because of that, it has so much power. It encourages in the beholder a sense of protectiveness, tenderness and connection, and because of that, you can use it to influence people to certain actions or beliefs quite easily.”
Seng’s movies are mesmerising; every depicts a shape-shifting dancer, performing inside a cell phone body whereas cute memes and make-up tutorials bombard the display. “I wanted to represent the hyperkinetic intensity in these interactions, and the way that it supercharges our own self-narratives,” says Seng. “I took references from TikTok trends, K-pop idols, role-playing, and ‘VTubers’ [who live-stream as digital avatars]. It provides a very rich palette to play with.”
If cuteness was as soon as neglected for its playfulness and “girly” particulars, then all of those qualities are being reclaimed because the ultimate smooth energy. Elsewhere within the exhibition there’s a full-room “girls’ sleepover” set up designed by “hyper-pop” musician and visible artist Hannah Diamond. “This exhibition really explores all the different dimensions, or entities, that cuteness could be. I’m keen to use a word like ‘girlishness’ rather than femininity, because it’s not actually a gendered concept any more,” says Diamond.
When she started releasing music with the label and artwork collective PC Music a decade in the past, she was ambivalent about her materials being described as “cute”; she has since seized that spirit throughout her vivid pink-and-blue imagery and candy digital melodies, together with in her latest album Perfect Picture.
“I’ve learned that there’s power to be had in a place where I had previously felt disempowered,” she says. “My installation invites everybody to come in and lie down on these huge beanbags, and be sonically and visually immersed in girlishness — and to experience it in the way that girls online are experiencing this visual culture.”
I ponder whether adults want cuteness greater than ever in intensely troubled occasions. When we scroll by way of our newsfeeds, they dissolve into an infinite loop of cuteness and trauma. “Cuteness embraces the darkness in a positive way,” says Catterall. “If you’re struggling with your mood, cuteness can really help with that. It upends all our preconceived notions of what our world should be.”
Cuteness provides that giddy vitality, the luxurious consolation of nostalgia, the thrilling potential of escape or turning into one thing else totally — so how might we presumably resist? “I hope that everyone can feel inspired, energised or transformed by just being in that space,” says Diamond. “Because that’s what cuteness does for me.”
To April 14, somersethouse.org.uk
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