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'Terminator'-Style Strollers Loaded With Lasers and Guns

by Matthew Zuras on December 11, 2009 at 01:25 PM

For those of us working at the Switched offices in Manhattan, we are intimately familiar with a certain stripe of New York mother that raises all kinds of hell on stroller wheels. Seriously, we'd rather get in a cage-match with some iron-faced kickboxers than these moms who would roll over any commuters in the way of their little baby's buggy. Perhaps artist Shi Jinsong had them in mind when designing these frightfully malevolent carriages on view at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

Jinsong's 'Gun Shape Baby Cradle' may look like it's straight out of 'Terminator,' but it's also full of subtext. Straddling themes of violence, globalization, and Chinese tradition with a heavy dose of irony, Jinsong's work is powerful, frightening, and not lacking a certain amount of schadenfreude.

His previous sculpture invoked the wily Na Zha, a Chinese deity in the form a warrior-trickster child with a penchant for violence. Modern pledges to Na Zha center on lotteries and gambling -- a materialism that Jinsong does not ignore in his work. He manufactures the imagined accoutrements of this enfant terrible.

His new work is an evolution, incorporating modern technologies of death like machine guns and laser guides. This tantalizingly unsafe line of baby accessories reflects both our need for top-of-the-line objects and the potential for violence that surrounds us. Coveting these strange, beautiful, terrifying sculptures initiates a dialogue between a cut-throat global economy and those who would willingly venture into it. So, on that note, we think we'll pass. [From: Designboom]

Tags: art, chinese, stroller, terminator

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