I want to 'bury' myself at the final show. Although nobody will know it but us, dear readers, I will turn the final show into my own metaphorical state funeral.
In other words, I want to have something that represents my metaphorical remains... I initially thought this idea came unbidden, but I had it after listening to an RA podcast featuring Anthony Gormley in conversation, so I guess it was probably inspired by his body casts. However, I don't think that means it's necessarily going to be derivative... The symbolism is irresistible, and the touch of irony is inevitable, but it also pulls together a lot of what I have been working on over the course of the MA.
The initial conceit as it first came to me was a Tom-sized slab of white material, with cavities at various points, filled with life-castings, over-laid with gorse, and all embedded in epoxy to create a flush surface. However, aesthetic or semantic objections aside, this presents a very real challenge, mostly of transport and storage, let alone fabrication... Plus I'm trying to give up the epoxy fetish....
So what to do... I have the start of a few ideas... I think I want the finished object to look like either a tomb, or a forensic table, or both... I think I want 'fragments' of my body to be present, but arranged in the correct positions, like how an incomplete skeleton is laid out with the bones in the correct relative positions, even if some of them are missing. I'd like to finally use my face-cast (I'm so embarrassed I haven't made a mould yet - mostly because I can't find a mould box to fit), perhaps entire, or perhaps modified.
I think I need to experiment with a few things:
- Soaking fabric in plaster to create castings around shapes
- Casting a thin 'slice' of larger body parts using shallow trays of alginate
- Creating a 'grave-like' cavity by crudely casting around my body with something - initial contender - corn-startch foam
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