“Birth”

Materials:

Plaster, hot glue, wire, yarn, fake moss, crystal mineral

Approximate Dimensions:

13″x 7″x 8″

A.) Speak to your understanding of your embodied self according to one or more of the philosophical ideas brought up in class: what is the nature of you that is housed in your body, or what is your relationship to your corporeal self?

I feel that in my body there are multiple aspects that build up my complete mental embodiment rather then just a specific being.

B.)Describe the intangible state or aspect of your identity that you’ve chosen to investigate in your mold/cast.                   

I’ve decided to investigate the mental aspect of my identity, I did this feeling that we all share the same state of mentality and we think with the same process and that process filters as an organic structure.

Explain each of your choices below in terms of how they materialize the intangible sense of self described above:

body part: head, fingers

gesture/posture: gripping, faint expression

process of alteration: chiseling into faces, inserting finger into right eye, secretion throughout the head, layering 

additional material(s):

moss, crystal structure, striped curvature, and hot glue

display orientation: upright

How did you use or exploration mass and texture to evoke this intangible aspect of yourself?

By the use of layering materials that evoke movement and growth.

Describe your process of making an alginate body mold and a plaster cast, and explain when and how in that process you altered the cast.

I started with mixing and alginate mold and apply it my model’s face and as the alginate cured I layered strips of plaster bandages to a hard surface for the alginate to lay in position of my model’s face structure. After bother layers dried I poured a cup of plaster, just before the plaster dried solid enough I applied some of the other materials such the crystals, and moss. Soon after the plaster dried I chiseled craters into the face where in one of them I inserted a plaster cast of a finger. Between the process of casting the alginate and plaster I constructed a curved bridge made from 19 gage wire and wrapped with plaster bandage with another finger cast followed on top of it, I then applied it to the drying plaster of the whole face.

What types of inhabitable spaces in the world informed or inspired the design of your inhabitable space, and why did you choose these references?

I was inspired by the cocoon of a spongilla fly, the reason for this is because I feel that the birth of our ideas and thoughts are constantly shelled in our heads waiting to metamorphosis into something that can be applied to the world and to others so the coon represents the incasing of those idea and thoughts as they metamorphosis and become released into the atmosphere outside of our heads.

Describe the habitat, or inhabitable space, that you made for your altered body cast, including the materiality, the exterior, and the qualities or atmosphere of the interior space.

The space between the inhabitable space and the cast represents a bond that has finally seized and is now opened to the space that surrounds the rest of us demonstrating the general idea of the cast.

Explain how the altered cast relates physically AND conceptually to the inhabitable space you’ve made.

The inhabitable space I’ve is supposed represent a form of containment while at the same time showing the act of release. The wired cocoon allows the viewer to witness the construction of mind in the process of presenting itself.

Physical: material, space, form: How does the cast meet the inhabited space?  Consider the relationship between surfaces.

The inhabitable space orbits around the cast resembling an untouched bond.

Conceptual: why you’ve made these choices?

Too depict metaphorical barrier between thoughts exposing itself to the outside world.

Discuss at least one strength and least one weakness of your second project.

A strength would be the composition of and weakness would be the attachments of the inhabitable space.

Is your altered cast physically unified, skillfully made, structurally sound?  How about your inhabitable space?

I would say my cast is well unified and structurally made as for my inhabitable space it is made to distressed and worn for the idea of final release.

Are your cast, alteration, selection of materials, inhabitable structure, and use of space conceptually unified?  Do these choices all serve to materialize and communicate something about the complex situation of being, which involves being both an intangible something that inhabits a body, and a body that inhabits the world?

Yes, they meet these aspects and represent what I believe is a metaphorical form we all share.