It Began Like This A very dear friend gave MOATMAI two very ugly bunnies: brown, stiff and with a tartan pattern on their ears. To make the ears stick up the manufacturer had reinforced them with wire which you could feel through the thin plastic fur. One day, MOATMAI and Ray came up with the bizarre idea to burn the bunnies, photograph it and declare the result to be "art". It Happened Like This On a hot summer night, MOATMAI and Ray drove out to an abandoned soccer field with very light-sensitive film and burned the two bunnes on the ground near the goal. That sounds easier than it was. First, these days stuffed animals are made of materials which won't burn easily. If a fire breaks out in a children's room, the plush toys will be among the last things to catch fire. To overcome this problem, MOATMAI and Ray poured kerosene over them. Boy, did those bunnies light up. The Results Before the first bunny was lit, MOATMAI was having doubts about the whole thing, but Ray pushed ahead. Then, the bunny burned. Ray looked through his camera and whispered: "Oh shit." Smoke billowed up into the night sky and the bunny smelled horribly of burning plastic. He asked MOATMAI to look through the viewfinder. MOATMAI saw the bunny's nose melting onto its chest even as the bunny stared straight into the camera: a dark, terrible and accusing stare. When nothing but charred bits remained on the ground, Ray got cold feet. "Let's leave the second one be", he said, but this time, MOATMAI pushed ahead. Somewhat muted, they lighted the second bunny. They drove home in silence, guilt weighing heavily on their shoulders. The full horror of what they'd done didn't become apparent, however, until they saw the photos. The Pictures The pictures are horrible. This is no the result of tricky PhotoShop manipulation: They really looked like this. Ray took the photos with highly sensitive film; the images on the following pages were scanned straight from the negatives. The resulting image data was subsequently post-produced in Photoshop. Dust and Scratches were removed, contrast was improved and some coloring was applied since the colors were all washed out. Apology Dear friend: If you should ever come across these pages, you will see what MOATMAI has done to your poor little bunnies. We are really sorry. Proceed See the Bunnies Burn.

Text and Images © 1999 by Ray & MOATMAI (reluctantly)