Plastic (not so) fantastic

Disclaimer: This is a bad idea, don't do this (and if you do, don't blame me for your subsequent respiratory issues)

Still mourning the 'loss' of epoxy, I've been looking around for alternatives. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea of seeing if I could recycle plastic into some form of fairly clear, hard, epoxy alternative. I did some research, and the general consensus was that this is a bad idea as many plastics don't melt, they degrade, giving off toxic fumes in the process...

However, never one to be deterred by common sense, I pushed on... It seems that Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and Polypropylene (PP) are two of the safer plastics to melt. PET is by far the most common, so I settled on that. After collecting food containers marked with the PET recycling symbol, I discovered that there are further nuances to this - namely 'A-PET' and 'R-PET'. These are sub-types of PET, and while most things are just marked 'PET', they are useful because 'A-PET' is probably better than average, and 'R-PET' is probably worse... 'A-PET' is amorphous PET, which means it's less likely to crystallise and go white (see below). 'R-PET' is recycled PET, which means it's been through the ordeal once already and is less likely to go through it well a second time.

I found an old saucepan (Carolyn used to cook amazingly, I barely manage to cook at all, so there are lots of saucepans looking for a new career), and 'shredded' the PET containers into it as best I could. I started heating over a vigorous heat (I'm a vigorous kinda guy), with the window open and my daughter at school as vague nods to safety.

The PET began to turn white, without even starting to melt. I think this is because the PET is crystallising - the disorganised polymer chains are unionising and that turns the solid white. I decided to add a saucepan lid, and lower the heat. The good news was that the PET did start to melt and even turned clear, the bad news was:

• It turned white again when it cooled
• A lot of containers yielded a very small amount of liquid
• The molten PET is really viscous, making it very hard to work with (think cold honey)
• The molten PET solidifies almost as soon as the heat is removed, making it basically impossible to pour
• The solidified PET was very very sticky and almost impossible to remove from surfaces

The good news was that it was really hard once set, but also brittle, further suggesting it had crystallised.

I had a second attempt using even lower heat and the saucepan lid from the start, but with the same outcome:

The resulting 'vomit' of plastic is kinda cool, and so I did some experiments with it in GIMP and Blender:

However, overall, this hasn't been a huge success! I think I will try one more time using only PET bottles (which I'm hoping are better quality PET than the vegetable cartons) and if that doesn't work, I'll go back to putting my PET in the recycling like a good citizen.

Holey Face - a happy accident, or an accidental abomination?

 I created this:

What's interesting is that I didn't really intend to create it - it sort of happened by following a process of intuition and experimentation. Is it art? I don't know, but I find I can't stop engaging with it - it is both horrific and sad and beautiful at the same time. The 'face' is plaster, the red is velvet. I didn't intend it to shock, but rather to express something deeply painful.

It started by an experiment of covering string in plaster and lying it into the mould. This came out more interesting than I expected - I expected a sort of lattice work, but in my concern to make it strong, I probably added more string and more plaster than I intended. As a result, a lot of the plaster ran between the strings, creating much more of a solid cast than I expected. I needn't have worried about strength - it's rock hard! I liked it, but felt it needed something to distinguish the surface from the 'internals', so I decided to paint the exposed string gold. Tomgos felt gold was a bit cheesy, but Tathos was adamant. Unfortunately, I think Tomgos called it right... I have a broad rule of thumb not to paint natural materials. 

I felt it needed something behind to give it more structure. I considered wax and even plastic (I'm exploring recycling plastic, one of my more stupid experiments), before hitting on fabric. I attached the fabric by stitching it through the lattice, which worked really well, and was fun, plus good practice if I want to explore using fabric in my art in future (textiles is one area I haven't really explored before). However, when it was done, it had quite a 'Venice carnival mask' and/or 'Queen Amidala' aesthetic which I really didn't like....

So, fatefully, I decided to paint it with a thin black wash. I intended to just do the gold, but got enthusiastic and started doing the plaster, with the aim of highlighting some of the finer detail. Unfortunately I forgot how thirsty plaster is, and it immediately started drinking the wash, leaving a dark black mark. Moreover, when I painted the gold originally, I got a bit on the white surface, so I painted over that with white paint... Which was invisible until I applied the wash, which sank into the exposed plaster, but barely touched the areas painted white... Causing the blotchy grey surface you see here.

At that point I decided to just go with it... And so you get what you see above. I hung it on the wall to contemplate what to do with it... And it sort of 'popped' - hanging it at an angle (again by accident) gave it a sad, melancholic expression.

So now what? I don't know! I feel like it's something slightly horrific that I made by accident. But I also really like it. It speaks on a deep and uncomfortable level to something we would rather forget. The plaster is cold and hard and bloated, the velvet is soft and creased and comforting. The fact that it works for me feels like an accident, but an accident I made happen?

I am tempted to enter it into an open call called "Outer Layer" - almost because I feel like other people should see the fucked up thing that I made... If it's accepted, I guess maybe they see a bit of what I see. If it's rejected, that's ok - it's my precious broken thing which can hang on the wall and make visitors to my house uncomfortable ;)

Art and play as behaviours, not an activities

 I was thinking about art and play (the subject of my research paper), this morning. More specifically what insights it might give us about the purpose of art, by thinking about the purpose of play. I have been coming to the conclusion that art (like play) is about communication. However, is the purpose of play really communication? Group play perhaps teaches about cooperation, but solitary play doesn't.

Ellen Dissanayake talks about art as process of "making special". She noted that artists liked this definition, but scientists hated it (to paraphrase!). With a foot in both camps, I can see why! Certainly as an 'artistic definition' of art, I really like it. I really like it's simplicity, but robustness. It speaks to a universal-ness that we have perhaps lost sight of. It also makes me reflect on how we talk about art as a activity, but experience art as a process or even just a behaviour. We don't do this to play although, perhaps tellingly, we devalue it in the process. We see play as something everyone does. We don't identify people as 'play-ists' ('player' has come to have its own connotations that we irrelevant here). People don't train to 'play'. People don't pay thousands to watch people play. People expect people (usually children) to play for it's own sake, with no expected outcome, and no expected material gain to themselves or society as a whole.

But perhaps this gets us close to where the dog is buried? Certainly in english-speaking culture, play is dismissed and devalued. Adults would never say they like to play (and when they do, it is taken to have sexual connotations). Adults are allowed to have 'hobbies and interests', but even these are tinged with disapproval and flippancy. They are seen as slightly embarrassing obsessions to be kept well-separated from the workspace. The self-respecting individual doesn't really have time for anything except work. Play is not work and in a 'productive' society, work trumps all.

And if play is not seen as work, perhaps by trying to 'elevate' art to the status of work, we are creating a raft of problems? We are immediately 'fighting on the back foot'. We are taking a human behaviour, and saying some people should be paid to do it. To justify this, we create social pressure to define a purpose. We risk denigrating those that would do it for fun. We create an exclusivity on something that all humans (and perhaps other animals) just naturally do. 

Imagine if we did this to play! Imagine people at parties proudly saying they were 'playists' and complaining that other people play, but they are just doing it for fun, and they don't really understand what a real playist does... If they had been to play-school, then they would get it.. Maybe.. In fact, nobody really understands what playists do except other playists... And even then, opinions vary... But it's all so very unfair... The government should make more money available to playists to let them play... Playing is hard enough as it is...

And so, perhaps this leads to purpose. What is the purpose of art? Is art for pleasure? Social awareness? Beauty? Therapy? Sending a message? Making people think? Community? All those things... And more... Like play, I think art isn't FOR anything. Art simply is. It's a thing humans do. Some of those humans do it to make themselves happy, some of them do it to spread a message, some of them do it to make beautiful things, some of them do it to express things they can't put into words. Some of those people (a very small number) are lucky-enough to be able to make a living from it, but with money comes constraints and expectations... But maybe that's ok?

By knocking art off it's pedestal, are we smashing it? Debasing it? Or are we returning to everyone what always theirs?

Undeliverable Letters?

 Slow but steady progress with my piece for the RA Summer Show. I think I'm close to a name - "undeliverable letters" - probably not quite the mote juste, but close - it clues people into what might be going on, and the letters are both literally undeliverable (you can't send a letter into the past) but also emotionally undeliverable (how could you share such news with someone?).

I was struck by an idea today (probably inspired by something I saw, I genuinely can't remember), and decided to add some 'stray' bits of paper to the edges of the mask, so it looks like the face is almost 'emerging' from loose paper. I did a rough prototype to see what it might look like:

It's not perfect (neither is the photography) but I already like the idea a lot. I think it makes it more dynamic, less mask-like, less "Castle Fine Art", but it also gives me the ability to add more paper after the mask has been demoulded, potentially giving me a second bite at the cherry if the moulded stage isn't very legible/interesting. The above is my rough prototype (the one I applied the letter to after it had been demoulded), now I will try with my good prototype (the one I moulded directly from fake letter material). I will also make sure I match the paper colour, and I have written an actual letter to use. The actual letter was intended to be just 'free writing' but ended up being a bit more 'raw' than I expected. My writing is almost illegible even to me, so there's no point posting it, but it concluded with "we gather the pieces from the floor, the ones we can find, and play on as best we can".

Further adventures in the land of paper mache casting...

Hmmm, I still don't have a working title for my piece for the RA Summer Show... Which is odd... Often the title comes around the same time as the idea. I'm not going to try to force it, I guess. Working titles are usually odd and/or descriptive, and actually "Waiting Place" was called "Where you from submission" for most of it's life ;)

I've been doing further experiments to bottom out the technique for the paper mache, and then try to bottom out the aesthetics of how I will display the piece... "Bottom out" is such a silicon valley phrase... "Once we bottom this out, I know a great steak place in the Sunnyvale Heritage District that does local beers"...

Paper Mache - the text: build in or apply later

With regards to technique, I tried covering the first mask in a layer of written-on paper, to see if I could just apply the letter to the face at the end - doing so has some big pros as it makes it easier to see exactly what text is going where, and what is covering what. The layer went on really well:

However, it did cover a lot of the finer details. It also 'wetted' the lower layers enough to cause the mask to 'sink' slightly. 

In parallel, I've finished a new mask, this time starting with 2 layers of written/printed paper, then a layer of newspaper, then a layer of writing paper. For this mask, I used the technique of rubbing undiluted PVA into patches of paper with my fingers, then carefully applying it to the inside of the mould and rubbing it down to expel the air/excess glue, plus iron out any creases that form (even with using smaller pieces for more curved areas, there are inevitably a few creases). 

I allowed the first two layers 24 hours to dry each, and then allowed top two layers 24 hours together. I discovered that it's ok to lightly mark the first layer to make it easier to see where the second layer hasn't covered (otherwise it's a bit 'painting a white wall with white paint'). 

Demoulding this morning went well save the tip of the nose becoming dislodged, at which point I discovered that the tip was still wet since it can't really dry once it's trapped between the silicone and the layer above. Thankfully I was able to smooth it down, and a few hours later the whole thing was dry and really rigid (although i suspect it will continue to further cure and harden for another couple of days yet):

I was amazed by how well the detail came out, and how smooth the surface looks. 

The major con with this approach is that you have to work 'upside down' - the first layer in will be the surface and you won't see what it really looks like until afterwards. However, I think the pros of not having distortion and not loosing detail really outweigh this. 

Once the surface was dry, I did use a pencil to just slightly darken the creases on the eyes and mouth. I'm struck by how much the colour/surface design of the paper affects how you 'read' the face e.g. the lines of vertical printing on the top lip give the immediate impression of skeletal teeth. Something to try to design for when building up the face later...

How to display the piece

I really like the piece as it is, and I might just display it flat as it is... But I also feel it doesn't look very 'finished' so I've been experimenting with some ways to display it. Firstly I used a manikin head I have to see what adding a full head might look like:

I really like it, but I don't THINK it adds enough to justify the significant effort required to do this for real.

Having done some research, the typical way to display a mask like this is what I have come to call the "head on a stick aesthetic". As you can guess, I have some reservations about it. I did try it (making myself a simple stand from some wood I had lying around):

I don't HATE it as much as I thought I would, but it still feels a bit forced to me. I might still come back to it, but I do like the idea of lying the head down, so I tried various ways of making a 'hood' to give the mask a bit more mass and form:

It's a bit weird, but I actually kinda like it! I am tempted to try combining the 'hood' with the 'head on a stick'... Decisions decisions... 

I also popped to Hobbycraft and bought a couple of posies of fake daisies - I must have looked so cute coming out grasping them in my huge hand ;) I tried playing a few on the hood (above), plus making a simple 'crown':

I kinda like it, although it again pushes the idea of the mask as 'dead' rather than sleeping innocently... Dunno. It's hard ;)

I have two weeks left (eek). I've asked the amazing volunteers to start their letters, and I need to nail the question of how to display the finished thing...

Paper Mache casting experiments for RA Show Submission

I'm feeling fairly confident that I want my RA Submission to be a paper mache cast of my face, papered with a 'letter' from me-now to me-before-bereavement. I've tentatively reached out to other people to see if they want to take part, but it's a big ask, so I'm cautious to even ask. I'm thinking there will be elements that imply sacrifice - the innocent victim, about to be sacrificed to destiny... Probably flowers around the temples. I had a good (if slightly creepy (my fault)) conversion with Google Gemini about different flowers with symbolism of sacrifice, but the main one, hysslop, has biblical connections what don't really fit for me.

I did some experiments on casting paper in the face mould. I decided to go for layers, not a pulp. I initially checked the PVA wouldn't stick to the silicone, which it didn't. I first experimented with newspaper soaked in diluted PVA. This worked fairly well, although the newspaper adsorbed a lot, meaning that the mask was soon awash with glue, and secondly that it took an eon to dry... I then tried a layer of printed paper which I smeared with undiluted PVA. This was much 'dryer' while still being quite workable, but the PVA working time was quite small, so it made more sense to pour small amounts at a time.]

I was planning to build up a lot of layers, but in the end I caved in and demoulded it after just two layers so I could experiment with using the smearing approach for all the layers instead, plus starting with the paper layers (which will more closely match the final version).

The result was actually pretty awesome! There's a lot more detail than I feared there would be. The challenges with the nose are clear on inspection (it's very narrow and deep and the nostrils make it very hard to get paper in) but not obvious unless you look. It was quite floppy with only two layers, but is stiffening up more now that it can actually dry properly... I clearly need more than two layers, but I was quite worried about how limp it was initially.

I've now done the first layer of paper smeared with glue, which is sticking well to the mould (hopefully not too well) and looks much more solid than the newspaper. It's drying much faster too, but I'm going to let it dry out well overnight before I add more - firstly because I want it to be quite robust before I risk a second layer, and secondly because once the second layer is on, it will be almost impossible for the bottom layer to dry before it's demoulded.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

Came across the quote, attributed to Ernest Hemmingway -  "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Looking it up, the internets seem to agree that Hemmingway didn't say it, and that glorifying addiction is a bad thing. Clearly as literal advice, it's terrible, but surely most people understand that it's better taken metaphorically... Surely?

As metaphorical advice, I think it's interesting - it validates a few things I've concluded over the last year. Firstly, that the process is broadly about expansive creation, but also reductive curation - and that these are somewhat separate processes - clearly this is considered obvious in writing, but seems to still be up for debate in visual art? Secondly that the expansive creation process is better undertaken with a relaxed, non-judgemental mindset. Tomgos and Tathos strike again!

Past Tom entered me into the RA Summer Show, the arsehole

To be clear, Past Tom is the arsehole. I'm not calling the RA an arsehole (yet) nor is "Arsehole" the title of my intended submission, although I wouldn't rule it out... 

Sometimes Past Tom does stuff that he thinks will be good for me, knowing that Future Tom (from his perspective) is going to hate him for it, but Future Tom (from Future Tom's perspective) will forgive Past Tom later when it all works out in the end. It's a sort of deal Past Tom and Future Tom have with each other. In this case, I think Past Tom thought it was my last chance to enter the RA Summer Show (although who knows) so why not... It's £40, which is a lot of money to blow, but I'm a miserly bastard, so I should afford myself the occasional indulgence.

For those who haven't been foolish enough to blow £40, basically the way it works is that you buy a chance to submit (from a capped number of 'tickets'), pay your wonga, and then submit at your leisure before the deadline in Feb. If somehow you don't get rejected at that stage, you are then summoned to deliver your piece to the RA, for a second round, and if you somehow STILL don't rejected, you get the honour of having your piece crammed in with a bunch of other people's work, and maybe the chance to make a slightly cringe breathless video about what it all means to you... I've never got past the paying and being rejected stage and almost certainly never will...

So I am now in the first interbellum period between successfully purchasing the right to enter, and actually making the submission... The theme is 'dialogue' and the tone is one of art-for-social-good - starting dialogues between different social groups etc To be fair you are expected to interpret as freely as you like, but there is definitely a bit of an agenda. I'm in a rather grumpy mood about art-for-good at the moment, as I feel like the quality of the 'good' often outweighs the quality of the art, and secondly because I feel like it's all a bit of a desperate bid to make art seem 'worth something' that's not money for rich collectors... It smells a bit tokenistic and apologetic, but maybe I'm just a knob... So that's not a great place to start, which was partly why I thought I'd agreed with myself that I wouldn't enter... Hey ho.

After much walking and thinking and humming and haring, I think I know the direction I want to go in. I want to explore the 'dialogue' between Tom 2.0 and Tom 3.0 - that's to say Carolyn's Tom, and current Tom. What would I say to my pre-bereaved self? What would my pre-bereaved self say to me? More generally, for all of us that have undergone some life-changing trauma (and that might be most of us), what could that dialogue be? Could there even be a dialogue? Beyond "I'm so fucking sorry", at least? This interpretation fits with my practice, fits the theme, and broadly fits the expectation to have a social element to the work. Boom... Great... So now what? What could that actually look like?

Cue more walking and thinking... I don't want to submit anything digital if I can help it - AI has pissed in that pond now. I can't draw or paint, so that's out... So photography or sculpture? I thought about using my frosted faces (which I haven't written up, but basically I left my wax face cast outside to get covered in frost) together with my living face to make a montage... But I'd like to avoid photography since I think sculpture would be more 'RA-like', plus (and don't tell anyone this 'hack') sculpture seems to have a higher chance of being accepted to open calls since fewer people do it, and curators need something 3d to fill the middle of the exhibition space...

So now I am thinking about a sculpture involving my face cast... After yet more walking and thinking (ok, I might be exaggerating a bit at this point), I've come up with a few ideas, but the leading one at the moment is to use one face cast to represent the past or future viewpoint, and imply the viewer as the other viewpoint. This ticks some boxes technically and aesthetically too. 

I'm thinking paper mache to save weight, and cover it in something that represents the 'message' to be shared with my pre-bereaved self (or from my pre-bereaved self, not sure yet). I'm now (assuming I don't decide I hate this idea and go back to the drawing board) trying to work out what form that 'message' might take. The obviously answer is a letter. I could even, perhaps, expand the work by inviting other to participate and have the cast covered in many letters from many people, overlapped, fragmented, crying into the void of time.

Open Casket Ideas v04

 REMOVED

ADDED/AMENDED

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

Is this a tomb effigy? Or a burial? Or an autopsy? Or an museum display? Or some combination? What vibe do I want? I think that whilst this is a 'burial', that is perhaps the least helpful since I want an element of examination.

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

 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
• Face deformed in some way? Skull? Partial? Too much!
• 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? 
• 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
• 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?

Grave Goods

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

Unity/Harmony vs Diversity/Contrast, thoughts on Schiller's 4th Letter

Making good progress with Schiller's "On the Aesthetic Education of Man" - the prose is quite hard to follow at times (requiring me to concentrate carefully, and often re-read paragraphs), but the 'letter' format is quite readable, and they are short enough that I can read one or two each morning before getting out of bed. I'm on the fourth letter, and was struck by this passage:

When therefore Reason introduces her moral unity into physical society, she must not injure the multiplicity of Nature. When Nature strives to maintain her multiplicity in the moral structure of society, there must be no rupture in its moral unity; the triumphant form rests equidistant from uniformity and confusion.

Schiller is again talking about 'reason' as the rational rules of society vs 'Nature' as the passionate, impulsive, individualism of society's members. So although he's talking about the aesthetics of society, as it were, it's still interesting to read it more generally roughly thus (warning, my interpretation!):

When logical rational impulses drive towards a unified coherent artwork, they must not injure the idiosyncratic, characteristic elements driven by the passionate irrational impulses. When passionate irrational impulses drive towards the incoherent and idiosyncratic, there must be no break in the overall coherence of the artwork; the triumphant form rests equidistant from uniformity and confusion.

I think the implication can therefore be taken, in other words, that the ideal is to balance between the boring but coherent, and the confusing but interesting. Just as Schiller is suggesting that society must balance the need for conformity and 'common rules' with the needs of individuals to be true to their own nature, so the artist needs to balance universality/accessibility with the need of their personal need to express their own character and quirks. The extreme of universality is the bland and formulaic, the extreme of personal expression is the obscure and self-indulgent.

Open Casket Ideas v03

 REMOVED

ADDED/AMENDED

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

Is this a tomb effigy? Or a burial? Or an autopsy? Or an museum display? Or some combination? What vibe do I want? I think that whilst this is a 'burial', that is perhaps the least helpful since I want an element of examination.

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.

 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

Life Casts

• Face, hands, and feet
• Face deformed in some way? Skull? Partial? Too much!
• 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? 
• 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

Grave Goods

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

"On the Aesthetic Education of Man" by Schiller - interesting parallel with Tomgos and Tathos

 Slowly (I'm a slow reader at the best of times) making my way through the intro to "On the Aesthetic Education of Man" by Schiller, but already seeing surprising and interesting parallels with my own thinking. This is not to suggest I have reinvented Play Drive, but rather than it suggests I am on the right track, and that reading this book will be instructive.

In particular, in the introduction by the translator, Snell, he states:

In his theory of the two fundamental impulses, Schiller connects Man's sensuous nature with the material impulse, and his reason with the formal impulse. The former, which rules him as physical being, lays upon him the shackles of physical necessity, and seeks to make him (in Fichtean phrase) pure Object; the latter comes to his rescue from the Absolute, and is capable of leading him back to the Absolute. So Man is a creature of two worlds, urged in two opposite directions at once to the empirical, the contingent, the subjective on the one hand, and to the free, the necessary (the necessity of the autonomous moral law), the objectively valid on the other. He has to satisfy the demands of both capacities and somehow bring them into harmony with one another; and this he does through the aesthetic, which unites matter and form, sensuousness and reason. Not until he has achieved that harmony is he free; he is a slave so long as he obeys only one of the impulses. How he sets about this in actual practice, Schiller finds it difficult to say. Elsewhere in his writings he emphasizes the importance of the relaxation of Man's powers, especially when they have been one-sidedly employed, and claims that such relaxation is given in its purest form by aesthetic contemplation, which occupies the whole of his powers in the same way that play does; he stresses the opportunity afforded by art, and especially by tragedy, for the exercise of moral power; and he believes that art is capable of introducing that condition of contentment (if the word is not misleading; equipoise might express it better) which is conducive to his physical and spiritual well-being alike.

The two impulses correspond well to 'Tomgos' and 'Tathos', but that's perhaps to be expected, since they derive from the greek ideas of logos and pathos. What's more interesting is the idea that these ('sensuousness and reason') need to be balanced through the aesthetic. Doing so involves relaxing of the power, in my case, letting Tathos lead when my background and training to date is in logic. Ultimately the aim being balance, or rather equipoise, which corresponds somewhat to the 'null point'.

Of course, the aim here is 'moral living' and contentment, not art production, but I was nevertheless struck my the parallels, and I am intrigued to see what I might further learn.