Mouchette - Kill That Cat

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Kill That Cat is a page from mouchette.org (1996-ongoing). A fictional adolescent girl, fascinated by suicide and strangers, Mouchette is the long-running work of Amsterdam-based artist Martine Neddam. Her labyrinthine, ever-growing site makes use of expressive HTML elements to involve the viewer in the turbulent emotional world of an adolescent girl. Participation is central, and visitors are encouraged to talk about suicide, contribute fan art, and even adopt Mouchette's identity. Kill That Cat exemplifies the performative quality of the browser and code in the staging of Mouchette. The picture of a wide open cat's jaw shakes erratically while a scream goes on and on. In the middle of that mouth a shaking button says “KILL THAT CAT” and all you want is to hit that moving button and stop that scream.

Visit anthology.rhizome.org/mouchette, and read Michael Connor's interview with Martine Neddam.