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Date Created
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2024
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Description
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This crafted object combines the artistic practice of painting and video editing on a laptop’s screen to explore Kris Straub’s Candle Cove. The edited video uses a mixture of uploaded content on YouTube to examine how Candle Cove was shared online as part of the digital genre of creepypasta (taken from the computer commands “copy and paste”). The video also investigates the text’s thematic placement within the wider horror genre by sampling clips from popular horror movies, such as Perfect Blue (1997) and The Ring (2002). The painted screen reflects the narrative delivery of Straub’s text, with each color representing a character in the story. Together, the colors highlight the role of individual and collective memory in Straub’s story. When combined, these artistic forms reflect the themes of Candle Cove whereby one’s memory and understanding of images are called into question. Through this crafted object, I considered the narrative form and genre of Candle Cove.
CEDAR FLYNN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:
Kris Straub’s short horror story, Candle Cove, explores the malleable barrier between memory and fiction. Narratively, the story is delivered through a group of characters detailing their memories of watching a disturbing childhood show. Throughout the narrative, characters question whether the program even existed at times asking if their memories of the program are manufactured or perhaps even a “dream” (Straub 26). The finale of the story reflects the characters’ questioning of their memory back onto the reader, revealing that the show’s imagery was in fact nothing but “dead air for 30 minutes” (Straub 27). It becomes the reader’s responsibility to decide whether the memories presented were fictional or something more horrific.
Originally published on Kris Straub’s website, ichorfalls.com, in 2009, Candle Cove was positively received for how it used its digital format to deliver its horror. Because the story is formatted as a message board, an online reader of the story could easily read the text unaware that it is a piece of fiction. As Joe Ondrak writes, the message board presentation grants the story a “degree of verisimilitude” whereby an online reader of the narrative takes it as “a ‘found’ conversation between real people” (Ondrak 174). The digital world’s façade of reality presents the horror in the story as a real event. For a reader unaware of the fictitious nature of Straub’s text, they too are made to question whether the show existed in the real world. This façade was further strengthened with Candle Cove being shared online within the tradition of creepypasta.
Creepypastas are horror texts that were originally spread over the internet. For scholars such as Valentia Tanni, creepypastas are the internet’s “digital folklore,” with the narratives being a collaborative process using a multitude of artistic media “that anyone can contribute to” (Tanni 84). For Candle Cove, the text first spread online with “people copying and pasting the link to the original story” (Ondrak 174). However, people began sharing the story in many ways, from “performing it on real forums and message boards” to creating YouTube videos claiming to be real episodes of the diegetic television show (Ondrak 174-175). Candle Cove’s spread as a creepypasta blurred the line between reality and fiction: online, one can stumble across discussions and videos presenting the narrative of Candle Cove as a real story without the knowledge of its fictitious nature.
Because Candle Cove was originally published digitally, I wanted to capture its digital origins in my crafted object. To achieve this effect, I decided to focus on visuals on a laptop’s screen. Inherent to the tradition of creepypastas is the combination of artistic forms to spread a story, so I felt it would be appropriate to use two main artistic approaches. The approaches are split between physical and digital art: physically, the laptop has had its screen painted over with acrylic, while digitally, an edited video is played on the screen. To highlight the visual aspect of my crafted object, I decided that video would not contain sound. My project aims to explore how the text is narratively delivered and how it was spread as a creepypasta.
The concept of a painted screen was inspired by Canadian artist IAIN BAXTER&’s art series titled Television Works 1999-2006. While BAXTER& states his use of a painted screen is focused on the “pervasiveness of technology & its relation to our natural and social landscapes,” for my crafted object, I used the image of the painted screen to highlight the role of collective and individual memory in Straub’s narrative (Iain Baxter&). With the story’s narrative being delivered through the characters exchanging individual memories, at times the characters correct details of one another’s forum posts. These corrections highlight that through the exchange of their individual memories, the characters are constructing a collective memory of the past. To reflect the construction of collective memory in my crafted object, the laptop’s screen was painted in four different colored quadrants, with each individual color representing one of the characters in Straub’s story. Like how individual memories in Straub’s text are combined to create a collective, the individual colors cover only part of the screen, and it is only when they are viewed collectively that the entire screen is filled.
When planning how to paint the laptop’s screen, I questioned whether there was any way to signify the digital nature of Straub’s text with paint. I realized that this could be done through visual representation. To visualize the digital aspect of Straub’s text, the colors blue, yellow, red, and green were chosen based on their resemblance to the colors in the 2009 Microsoft logo. To create these colors, the physical mixing of paints was required. As I mixed paints to achieve desired colors, the process reminded me of the mixture of forms that Candle Cove can appear in as a creepypasta. Like how mixing the paint together forms a new color, I realized that the different online presentations of Candle Cove, whether retellings or fan-created videos, still come together to form the digital myth of the text. As a creepypasta, the narrative of Candle Cove is constructed through a mixture of forms.
The edited video was directly inspired by filmmaker Jane Schoenburn’s experimental 2018 documentary, A Self-Induced Hallucination. Schoenburn’s documentary is constructed “entirely of footage uploaded to YouTube” to explore how the creepypasta “The Slender Man” was spread online across 2009-2018 (A Self-induced Hallucination 00:40). Similarly to Schoenburn’s documentary, the edited video I created uses clips from YouTube videos to visually display how Candle Cove is shared online. While I wanted the video to showcase how the story was spread online, I also hoped that the video would spread the story itself. Ideally, a viewer could watch the video and gain some semblance of Candle Cove’s narrative. To achieve my desire, I focused on how Soviet filmmaker, Sergi Eisenstein, claimed that the editing technique of montage can be used to present “an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots” (Eisenstein 49). With Eisenstein’s commentary in mind, I realized I could structure my video based on the plot of Candle Cove and use the pairing of clips to communicate the story’s narrative.
One concern I had when beginning to gather content for the video was whether to include clips from the official adaptation of Candle Cove, season one of Syfy network’s Channel Zero (2016). I felt concerned that the use of clips from an official adaptation would distract from how the story was spread using fan-created content. However, as I gathered content to create my video, my concern was lessened. I discovered that, on YouTube, videos, such as “Candle Cove Clip #1 – Bravery Cave” by “itzAdyden,” have clips from Syfy’s show uploaded with little to no reference to their original source, instead presented them as real episodes of the show described in Straub’s story. Through videos like “itzAdyen’s,” Syfy’s adaptation becomes recontextualized as Candle Cove’s fictional program, allowing users to use the content in the spread of the creepypasta. Because of this process of recontextualization, I had no qualms about using clips from Syfy’s adaptation within my video, as I realized they still captured how the story was spread online.
As I edited the video, I realized that through the editing process, I could explore Candle Cove through the lens of comparative analysis with other horror texts. Thinking about Eisenstein’s theory of “intellectual montage,” where the pairing of shots suggests an intellectual linkage, I began to add clips from horror movies I felt explored similar themes to Straub’s story (Eisenstein 82). Through comparative analysis, I became aware of how Candle Cove’s horror is presented by focusing on human fears of technology. For example, the imagery of the static television screen at the end of Candle Cove is present in films such as Poltergeist (1982) or The Ring (2002), and when this connection is visually signified, the text’s thematic similarities to these films are made apparent. Candle Cove, like The Ring and Poltergeist, uses the concept of a sinister technological force to inflict fear on its readers, focusing on how technology could possibly alter one’s understanding of their reality.
As I completed my final project by combining the painted screen and edited video, I became filled with delight. I loved that when my chosen art forms were combined, the contents of the video became visually blurred by the painted screen. Like the characters of Straub’s text questioning their own memories of specific images, a viewer of my object is made to question the visually obscured images on the laptop’s screen. I felt pleased that with my crafted object I was able to communicate central themes of Straub’s text within an artistic form. Most of all, though, I greatly enjoyed that the process of creating my object made me experiment with two different artistic approaches that led to new understandings of my chosen text.
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To watch just the edited video removed from the laptop screen, please use this link.
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References
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“Iain Baxter&.” Canada & China Contemporary Art Communications, https://www.cacnart.com/-iain-baxter Accessed 9 December 2024.
Eisenstein, Sergej, and Jay Leyda. Film Form Sergei Eisenstein. Ed. and Transl. by Jay Leyda. Harcourt, Brace, 1977.
itzAyden. “Candle Cove Clip #1 - Bravery Cave.” YouTube, 3 Dec. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSaJEUB9oMw.
Ondrak, Joe. “Spectres Des Monstres: Post-Postmodernisms, Hauntology and Creepypasta Narratives as Digital Fiction.” Horror Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 2018, pp. 161–78, https://doi.org/10.1386/host.9.2.161_1.
A Self-Induced Hallucination. Directed by Jane Schoenbrun, 2018. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/275691576/4429fa2599.
Straub, Kris “Candle Cove.” Ichor Falls: A Vistor’s Guide. Nightlight Press, 2009, pp. 24-27.
Tanni, Valentina. Exit Reality: Vaporwave, Backrooms, Weirdcore, and Other Landscapes Beyond the Threshold. Translated by Anna Carruthers. Rome: Nero, 2024.
References for Clips Used in Edited Video:
Campus Movie Fest. “Candle Cove.” YouTube, 15 Oct. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3egzG61YBU.
FreshDecimate. “Candle Cove Screaming Episode (Reconstruction).” YouTube, 27 Dec. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FA7FSVe-yc.
I Saw the Tv Glow. Directed by Jane Schoenbrun, A24, 2024.
itzAyden. “Candle Cove Clip #1 - Bravery Cave.” YouTube, 3 Dec. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSaJEUB9oMw.
itzAyden. “Candle Cove Clip #4 - Screaming.” YouTube, 28 Mar. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQhS5FB9yo4.
Perfect Blue. Directed by Satoshi Kon, Rex Entertainment, 1997.
Poltergeist. Directed by Tobe Hooper, MGM/UA Entertainment, 1982.
Prescott Computer Guy. “Ten Minutes of Static.” YouTube, 16 Nov. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfycQJrzXCA.
Pulse, Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Toho, 2001.
MrCreepyPasta. “‘Candle Cove’ by Kris Straub [Reboot].” YouTube, 13 Sept. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN0vSIBnUNo.
Nothing Is Revealed. “The Real Lost Episodes (Spongebob, Candle Cove, and More).” YouTube, 2 Aug. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2X7aDgkF_s.
REACT. “TWEENS READ SCARY STORIES - Candle Cove Creepypasta (REACT).” YouTube, 18 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbOKYR9sMYM. \
Ringu, Directed by Hideo Nakata, Toho, 1998.
ScareTheater. “Does Candle Cove Exist?” YouTube, 7 Feb. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPI0TnKpV1M.
Scribbler Productions. “Candle Cove [Halloween Creepypasta Reading].” YouTube, 29 Oct. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KuihimVYOg.
Shunks. “The Forgotten Lore of Candle Cove (Pastober).” YouTube, 7 Oct. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGIBy284qvA.
Skinamarink. Directed by Kyle Edward Ball, performances by Lucas Paul, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Pual, Jamie Hill, Shudder, 2023.
SNARLED. “BEWARE OF CANDLE COVE - Creepypasta Story Time // Something Scary | Snarled.” YouTube, 20 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSqf37w6FW0.
The Ring. Directed by Gore Verbinski, Dreamworks Pictures, 2002.
watchwaddle. “Waddle to ScareTheater - Candle Cove Found Footage.” YouTube, 18 Mar. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp2prDyOVPI.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Directed By Jane Schoenbrun, Utopia, 2021.
33334243. “Candle Cove Creepypasta.” YouTube, 13 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdJ8m3_51xY.
Candle Cove