Open Casket and Five Minute Video - More walking and thinking

 I had some time today, so I went for another long walk. I think I'm in a good place with regards to the five-minute video - my current plan is write a (fairly) conventional 'script', probably record myself speaking it, then add video, then experiment with removing the audio... We'll see - I've never done anything like this so it's fun to explore.

Open Casket continues to be an interesting one... I'm sort of weirdly enjoying the process of being more deliberate with my process - I'm remembering a lot of the lessons I have learnt over the two years like remembering to be led by emotion, but tempered with reflection; like resisting the urge to write myself a verbal brief and fulfil it; like leading with meaning, not technique or materials; like not over-working; like prototyping.

Speaking of prototyping, I made a life-size cardboard cut out, and started placing elements on it. I can immediately sense the nub of the problem - it's a very big space, and I need to fill it with elements that work together. This is tricky, but the urge to make something life-size, but still transportable makes it very tough. I am really drawn to plaster and wood and metal, but I need to make myself be drawn to things like fabric and paper and light stuff! I do wonder if I'm shooting myself in the foot by trying to do something 'big' - I did think a lot about just doing a face.

I still think I want to do something with a body, but with the absence, not the presence of a body. My 'message' is still about the fragility of life, and how recognising that can help you find happiness, not anxiety. Some 'themes' I think are work, death, permanence, antiquity, transience, fragility, nature. I toyed with stuffing my work clothes with natural materials to make a 'nature body' in 'human clothes'. I love the idea of making something that would rot over the course of the show, but I don't think I can control it enough - it would either dry out and fail to rot, or turn into a stinking mess by lunchtime of the first day... 

For some reason, I can't get away from the desire to make a cast of my entire body - not a detailed life-cast, but more like a really rough cast of just the front or back surfaces. I am looking into ways to do this, and ways to create a cast that is transportable. I think maybe I just need to see where that leads... I guess one approach would be to literally cast my body, a 'smarter' one might be to use photogrametry to make a 'virtual' cast of my body. Somehow though, I really like the idea of making a real cast...

If I can make a real cast, I think there's a few things I can do... I can display it 'as is', and leave people to interpret it as they see fit, or I can do something further based on it. I wondered about suspending a sheet with hundreds of threads to pull it into the shape, but I am not really a textile artist. I wondered about cutting the cross-sections out of a series of wood panels to leave a Tom-shaped hole in the middle of a cross-sectioned 'coffin'. I wondered about hammering nails to different heights to follow the contours of the body - not very practical or affordable or transportable, but i love the idea of wood and metal and effort and force. 

I wondered also if the body should be 'at rest' or whether I explore darker territory and make the body look like it has slammed into the surface.

So much food for thought that I might vomit it all up... But I think I am making steady progress.

Open Casket and the five-minute video - the (non-sexually-gratifying) grinding continues

 I'm deliberately not formatting this as a 'versioned' update as I think the format isn't really helping my current 'stuckness', and actually this isn't really about the content so much as the process for deriving it... 

I'm making slow, but very painful process on both the five-minute video and Open Casket. As correctly predicted by JK, by making them feel like my final word on the subject, I've made them un-birthable... I've created a situation where every idea is not quite as good as the idea I haven't had yet... But no idea I HAVE had is quite good enough.

Squeezing My Nuts

I think this is all very good for me and character building and all that, but it's also not a lot of fun, and in grave danger of inadvertently proving my own theory that art is a 'free activity' like play, and the more I force myself to do the art magic, the more artistically constipated I'll become... That said, some of my better/weirder ideas have come from the process of forcing myself against seemingly unmovable constrains - I think of it as a bit like a Zen koan - by squeezing the nut sufficiently hard, I will eventually succeed in breaking my fingers in some artistically interesting way...

Five-Minute Video

I think for the 5-minute video, I am still in a good place. I just need to walk the line between making a weird art-video and making a boring conventional video about my practice. It needs to work as both or I need to abandon my fun challenge and make something that definitely works as a conventional video about my practice... My original plan had been to lean toward the weird-art-video side fairly heavily. However, I'm coming (through the process of careful planning) to realise that five minutes could be a very painful long time to watch something that (at first blush at least) doesn't make a lot of sense... It also requires a rich seam of visual material that I'm worried I may not have. I think I therefore need to keep pushing in this direction, but be ready to start diluting things down with some more conventional narrative if needed - i.e. let the narrative take more of the strain if the video material isn't quite up to the load. One fun potential 'twist' I did think of (because it wouldn't be Tom without some stupid twist) would be to get someone else to narrate it like it's a posthumous documentary.

Open Casket

Open Casket is a trickier beast... I think I'm still on the right lines, but I keep adding new constraints then removing all constraints, then adding in more constraints, etc in a bid to get to some sort of breakthrough... 

As detailed previously, I think I need to work out if it's participatory or not. Bereft of a great idea for a participatory work, and wasting many cycles grinding my gears on one, I decided to make the decision that I will NOT make a participatory piece - by taking that off the table (knowing I can always put it back on!) I'm hoping to narrow my focus.

Some things do feel fixed now - it's definitely a sculptural piece, almost certainly featuring some sort of life-size 'corpse', almost certainly featuring life casts, almost certainly featuring three props (wedding ring, time-management book, acorn), probably featuring some sort of natural materials too.

What IS shifting is the realisation that my original grandiose gesture of 'burying myself' at the final show is... well... a bit wanky. I guess the problem is raises is that that is the 'motivation' for me, but what meaning does it have outside of a grand self-serving self-therapeutic dump? Sure it feels good to get that load out, but what benefit does it serve the poor people I'm inflicting it on?

So the meaning and motivation need to shift... Ugh... Because now I am in danger of backing meaning and motivation into something that I'm already designing... Which is sort of arse-about-face as my dear old dad used to say. Except I have learnt that in art, arse and face are fairly flexible things. I'm ok backing up, adding meaning, then 'forward fixing' the resulting mess... At least, in principle.

So I think the broader meaning I extract from my 'death' is that you don't really understand what you have until you are about to loose everything. I sort of sum this up as "as evening draws in, how will you wish you spent the day", although now I think about it, that is something somewhat related, but different. Nevertheless, I think the purpose would be to encourage people to confront their own mortality, and realise that the 'answers' are already within them. You won't really appreciate how good the morning sun feels on your face until you realise you've had your last morning on earth. The trick then is to grasp what mortality gives us (and many eastern religions also preach) and try to enjoy 'now' fully and for it's own sake. Notice and enjoy the feeling of the morning sun on your face precisely because you believe and embrace the knowledge that you might NOT get to see tomorrow's sun. It's the world as it is. It's the null point... Huh.

So how to create a piece of sculpture that conveys that? I think I need to use the impulsion of my experience (Tathos) but processed through (somewhat objective) reflection (Tomgos). I think I keep the elements above, but I seek to anonymise them (if my face appears, it has to be clearly 'a face' not 'the face') and harmonise them (it needs to be one statement, not a mish mash of elements). I need to create something that clearly conveys the emotional charge of my experience and it's meaning to me (Tathos) but presented in a way that the viewer can see themselves in it (Tomgos).

Easy yeah?

Immediate Reflections of the movie "Flow" (no spoilers) - you should watch this movie!

 I dragged my daughter along to see "Flow" this evening... I say 'dragged' - a 'U' rated movie about a cute cat was an easy sell... It was definitely not the movie she was expecting, nor I expecting for her. For me, it was a visually stunning, sad, thought-provoking, treat of magical realism. For her it was 90 minutes of watching a cute cat nearly drown over-and-over again.

I went to see it because it was rendered using the Blender software that I use, and because it looked interesting:

I think it is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It was beautiful, sad, and atmospheric. The story-line is rich in metaphor and magical realism. I loved the use of metaphor and allegory - like a lot of magical realism, it had a wonderfully consistent symbolism, which was beautifully understated - it wasn't a case of looking at it and saying "oh, this means that", it was more a case of watching and thinking "oh, we've seen that motif before, I need to take it away and unwrap what it means". It was captivating in it's 'plain meaning', but promised so much more to be enjoyed after rumination.

It made me ashamed of how shallow and insipid my art it. It made me want to do so much better. I know I have it in me to make work that is so much richer, I need to push myself harder.

"Mask for the Bereaved" aka "Holey Face" exhibiting at the Bexley Arts Trust Summer Open Exhibition (and the 'joys' of being trapped unidentifed next to your art for 3 hours while people look at it)

I managed to find an 'outing' for my slightly disturbing holey face. I think that is sort of my metric/philosophy now - I want to find at least one chance to exhibit each piece that I consider finished.

I suspected this piece would be hard to exhibit as it's quirky, slightly disturbing, and probably not beautiful in many people's eyes. I was pleasantly surprised when it was accepted, but I think they have a fairly open policy, crave 3d work, and (to be fair) maybe wanted something a bit different to spice things up.

Everyone who exhibited had to do two shifts of stewarding, which seemed very fair. However, as a result, I had the dubious pleasure of sitting about 10 feet away from piece for most of a morning. Anyone who fantasises about sitting, undetected, within ear-shot of people as they view their work should try it! It's certainly character building. I think one person said it was 'nice' (although they might have been talking about the piece next to it), one person looked at it and just shook their head sadly (which sort of made me laugh), and the vast majority appeared to completely ignore it... 

I think I'm actually ok with that... I'm not sure my 'purpose' is to make art that people 'like' any more, and it wasn't a particularly conducive context for it to challenge people - most of the people visiting were there to visit the (very beautiful) Hall Place and gardens, and happened to wonder it. A few were half-looking for something nice to hang on their walls. Most of the pieces that received admiration where quite traditional and 'technically accomplished' paintings. The piece next to mine also got a lot of positive attention because it was quite witty, and I think that's totally fair!

Runway ML Video Experiments

 I did some brief experiments with Runway ML last year for the pink performance and was a bit underwhelmed - the results were weird rather than compelling. I see a bunch of AI video on Instagram which is far more compelling and coherent. However, inspired by that, and the playful urge to make something a bit creepy and disturbing to include in the five minute video, I cracked it out again...

This time I decided to try turning a piece of my static art into a video. I'm currently running a traditional render of my fabric mask bursting into flames, and it's stupidly slow, so the idea of generating video in a few clicks is compelling!

I chose "Pain and Acceptance", and asked Runway ML to take the image and generate a video where the two protagonists look at each other emptily. I'm not bothering to show them all, but the first attempt featured a significant camera movement, which was not what I wanted, but also caused Runway ML to significantly distort the two figures and replace the writing on the wall with asemic writing. I discovered a setting to stop the camera moving, plus specifying in the text prompt that it was a static camera. The result was the video below:

Overall I'm happy with it - mostly as a toy - there's plenty of things I'd love to change, but for now my curiosity is satisfied! Also I'm not sure how to change them! 

Open Casket v08 - Fish or Fowl? Time for hard questions!

REMOVED

ADDED/AMENDED

Complication and perambulation (to be rationalised later)

Open Casket has been stuck for a bit and so I went for a walk to fix it! I had various theories for it's stuckness - boredom, over-complication, distraction... Attempting to incorporate a participatory element seemed to trigger the stuckness, and  I think actually it's been stuck at a kinda peak ugly... 

The work started as a personal statement, broadly "this is the old me, that me died, I'm going to bury him here", but actually I think I've been starting to search for something more universal... Tathos emoted "this feels real to ME", Tomgos challenged "why should anyone care?". Trying to make the work participatory was actually a great trigger - as a participatory work, it cannot be successful unless it's universal - otherwise it becomes an icky invitation to pay homage to me! The urge to make it participatory started the process of looking for more universal meaning, I just need to see that through...

So.. so I need to move beyond the personal meaning "this is what happened to me, this is what I found" to a more universal meaning "this is a thing that will happen to us all, sooner or later, what does that mean to you?". I need to skirt the obvious trap here: asking what it means to you while pushing my answer so unsubtly that you feel you have no chance to answer. I need to lean into the learning from Unit 1 and ASK the question, NOT ANSWER IT!

I need to contemplate more on that... But a good place to start is to accept that my face needs not to appear... At least, not directly.... Missing? Shattered? Obscured? Maybe (that face cast cost me good money!) But not right there - as soon as my face appears, it becomes my own monument to me.

Motivation

The over all idea is to create an impression of sadness, mixed with humour and tranquillity - people should feel at rest with the 'body' not disturbed

Effigies are designed to be viewed, and to be a tribute to the deceased (or to invite prayer for the deceased). That doesn't feel right - I want a sense of intrusion and examination - dissection of life in death.

I think then, that this WAS a burial, but that burial has been disturbed and placed on show for the viewer's consideration (and perhaps in some senses, gratification). No crime has been committed, so I think this is more akin to a museum piece or an archaeological find. What is on show then, is in the spirit of a reconstruction of something found 'in situ', not the original condition.

Aesthetically, this pushes me towards more of a spartan look - this is not a sumptuous burial, but the slightly 'cold' display of one. It pushes me towards more of a 'scientific' look - harsher lights, designed for examination. It suggests that the elements should be display in a more simple 'frame', against the idea of an elaborate 'casket'. It suggests glass, and dark victorian wooden frames. It suggests, perhaps, in extremis, some form of pseudo-scientific paraphenalia, like moist monitors. It suggests broken and fragmentary and pieced together.

Shroud torn open to reveal elements inside? Like it has been forcefully revealed for study

If this is about 'interring' myself (always thought that word was 'interning'!), what better than to actually 'lay in state' at the PV while my plaster sets, and then leave the cast as my final piece.

Do I want some element of 'decay' over time? Should the piece change over time somehow? Break down somehow? Be buried somehow? Either through the materials or through audience participation?

A theme of my work is finding joy through the acceptance of the inevitability of death - could I somehow incorporate a participatory element through this? Maybe invite people to complete some form of 'note' (like "Wish You Were Hear") e.g. "If I died tomorrow, I wish I had..." or maybe more powerfully "If I died tomorrow, I'm glad I...". Could they be notes that fill the 'coffin'? Or hang on nails? Or maybe even get written onto the 'body' like "Undeliverable Letters"?

 Base

• A box? Or flat? Really want people to have to peer in so maybe a box? But weight will be an issue again
• Shaped or rectangular?
• Solid or mesh?
• Covered in something in the shape of my body? Spines of some sort?
• Shallowly moulded to impression my body (somehow? Weight!) - I'd really like to do this - but how? Some form of foam? Needs to be light, stable, cheap, and ideally environmentally friendly. Considered corn starch foam, but would have to experiment to see if it's suitable
• What the hell is the background going to be?? Becoming a limiting factor! Maybe look at real archeological displays of skeletons? Doing so, suggests something very plain - a board with some sort of backing, together perhaps with 'sides' and/or a sheet or perspex raise up as a lid

Life Casts

• Face, hands, and feet
• Make sure to cast wedding ring, and guild it afterwards

Body fragments

• Fabric casts - Swags over key areas (e.g. chest, thighs, ankles, neck etc) or more fitted 'garmets' like a shroud? 
• Cast entire body as part of a performance on-site?
• If I make thin casts of enough of my body, do I need the fabric casts? Maybe fabric casts for the trunk, thin life casts for the limbs? Do I want to deliberately break any of the casts?
• Definitely want to keep them white and unstitched (e.g. no actual clothes)
• Some form of 'rib cage' - more interest, and a clearer message that this is a 'body'. Could also bring natural elements in if made from sticks
• "Wear" ribcage over ribs while taking fabric casting so it sits over the 'ribs' but also has the shape of my body
• Build an entire 'skeleton' out of found sticks?
• Lily's fist in epoxy as a 'heart'
• Hole over the position of the heart, as those it has been torn out, but also to allow the epoxy "heart" to be seen
• Threads or wire binding together? Nimbus of thread from back of face? Fragmentary face? Fabric background, with faded outline? Stitched into body?
• Should the body elements (especially the trunk) be sheets of fabric? Or string with a backing like 'holey face'?

Grave Goods

• An acorn in one hand
• A book of Time Management under the other
• Flowers on head?

Reflection on article "What is the meaning of life? 15 possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor, a jail inmate and more"

 I read this article "What is the meaning of life? 15 possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor, a jail inmate and more" in The Guardian this morning. It moved me to tears (although I seem to be fairly easily moved to tears nowadays!).

I felt the letters expressed a lot of what I am coming to try to say with my art. Some did it better, but that's ok, it was like an injection of motivation to do the topic the best justice I can. 

I was particular struck by the words of Kathryn Mannix, the palliative care consultant:

The threat of having our very existence taken away by death brings a mighty focus to the idea of what matters most to us. I’ve seen it so many times, and even though it’s unique for everyone, there are some universal patterns. What matters most isn’t success, or wealth, or stuff. It’s connection and relationships and love. Reaching an understanding like this is the beginning of wisdom: a wisdom that recognises the pricelessness of this moment. Instead of yearning for the lost past, or leaning in to the unguaranteed future, we are most truly alive when we give our full attention to what is here, right now.

Whatever is happening, experiencing it fully means both being present and being aware of being present. The only moment in our lives that we can ever have any choice about is this one. Even then, we cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond: we can rejoice in the good things, relax into the delightful, be intrigued by the unexpected, and we can inhabit our own emotions, from joy to fear to sorrow, as part of our experience of being fully alive.

I've only experienced literal death second-hand, but I know how things that seemed to matter so much, like planning my career, being well-regarded, being a 'success', fell away... And for a time nothing mattered - life, death, money, food, all became the same... And there was terrible beautify and power in that, but also terrible emptiness and despair. It was like life in it's barest form - survival, I guess.

Monica Heisey describes the aftermath of the sudden death of her baby niece:

Something terrible had occurred from nowhere, and now our lives were changed for ever, and Rosie would not get to have one. I felt nihilism like a riptide, swirling around me and tugging at my ankles. It would have been easy to go under.

I think for a long time I was swept under by that riptide. I don't know that nihilism is 'bad', but my need to preach it to others was perhaps misplaced. As the numbness thawed, I found meaning in the sight of the spring leaves, in the way the birds fluttered from the branches, in the cold soil of winter. It is a simple meaning, but a pure one. And actually I came to remember compassion, and started to believe in humans again. My mother taught me that people are almost all fundamentally good, and I have certainly found it to be true. My wife used to say "people are just people", meaning each should be judged on their merits, not on labels, and I think there is deep wisdom there. 

Which bring me perhaps to Susan Pollack, who survived the concentration camps of WW2 at the age of 14:

In Sweden, where I was taken for recuperation for my devastated physical corpse-like being, one of the facilitators had a large collection of classical records. These he played every evening, and we sat around and listened in awe to Beethoven symphonies and other pieces. In my interpretation, I could feel the energy of the music, from sorrow and despair to the drive of supreme human effort to rise above those destructive memories. I must say not completely – personally, I don’t want to let it go completely – but I am free of the chains which deprived me in the camps. Music, generally, has an enormous effect on my life.

Perhaps that is one 'purpose' of art? To remind us that we are more than just ourselves?