Final Project – Proposal

A deathbed vision (DBV) is a vision or experience that the individual has before dying. It may occur immediately before death or days or even weeks prior. Often misunderstood as simply drug-induced hallucinations and signs for “unconsciousness” or “craziness” of the dying one, even medical professionals often regard such phenomena as meaningless or harmful symptoms. However, deathbed vision is common, and it is a mysterious private visual experience that people should learn about (whether to prepare yourself and not feel undignified about having the experience, or to prepare yourself for seeing others experiencing the vision, because memories of the final hours dominate survivor memory).  Besides introducing the phenomena’s scientific basis, I want to show the phenomena in a poetic way in which people can have their own understanding to the experience.

 

Proposal:

The imagined art piece in the MoMA will be a “live” installation. In the center of the installation is a huge ball of cotton wrapped with plastic food wrap; around the center piece are 80 candles placed in the center of 80 pieces of text(having decided yet, the whole piece should have 10*10 candles on each side and the number of candles in total depends on how much space is taken by the center cotton piece). On each piece of paper, there is an episode of deathbed vision recorded in the interviews that I find in my research of medical journals as well as on other internet resources. The installation starts by the artist igniting the 80 candles, and people cannot walk inside the piece while there are still candles burning. The viewing of the piece include the whole burning process of the candles until the candles are burnt out and irregular traces of wax is left on the pieces of paper with text. After the burning, viewers are free to walk into the installation and to read the text. There will be an introduction about the piece beside the installation.

Deathbed visions are non-predictable, and because of their intangibility, fragility, and abstract quality as that of dreams, it is hard to be precise and illustrated in letting people to get to know the experience visually. As a result, I decide on taking an approach similar to the characteristics the phenomena itself holds: abstract, dream-like, symbolic, and leaving space for each viewer to generate their own perception.

Cotton, soft, warm, welcoming the touch, like most of the visions are themed as concluded in the research — reunion, companionship, support, comfort. The plastic wrap, at the same time keeping the “cotton” from going bad, still tenderly separate the reality with the cotton — the hallucination. A single sight of the cotton ball makes you wanna touch and feel, yet the plastic wrap is still preventing you from actually feeling it. Extend your hand, touch, disillusioned. This is what the experience of death vision can be like for people, the vision can be comforting and welcoming in preparing you for a peaceful death, or the disillusionment can sometimes make the person feel ashamed, embarrassed, or undignified. When a number of candles are burning, the feeling perceived by the viewers, depending on the viewers themselves, can be calm, warm, or  intimidating. I do not want to limit people to a certain “feeling” they should get from the piece, but rather let them have their own impression on the piece and on the phenomena itself. Wax leftover on the paper are hard to regulate, like the deathbed vision itself, no one knows if they will encounter this phenomena later in life, no one knows whether they will witness his or her loved one experiencing the phenomena, and no one knows what will show up in the “private” vision — being comforted by a deceased loved one by seeing them happily in the other world, seeing some crazy fantasy of a plane with ice cream, having hallucinations in real life setting that cause embarrassment and “shame” after returning to lucidity?

 

Research:

The scientific explanation of the phenomena, including 1)study on the drug-induced aspect; 2)impacting factors (cultural, gender, religious belief, region, etc.); 3)the statistical analysis on the prevalence of the phenomena; 4)examples of the deathbed visions included in the interview of research as well as the content analysis (statistics about the common theme of the content)

 

Plan for the final critique:

Create a smaller version of the installation piece in the allowed space. In order for people to both experience what the installation will be like both during and after the candles igniting, I want to include both phases in the critique: let some candles burnt out, some burnt half way through and reignite during the critique, and some new candles ignited during the critique. Therefore, people can have a better sense of what the piece will be like during the candles are still burning and after, and they can go near and read the text on the paper with wax left-over.

 

Materials:

cotton, plastic wrap, candles, paper and typed text

 

Examples of deathbed visions:

She had visions, I called the psychiatrist when she could still talk. She said she could see a plane coming and other things. My mother had been a very lucid and well-organised woman, both her family and mine used to listen to her, and when she started to tell me all sorts of things which were not real I was horrified, that is how bad it was. But she had “good” visions, for example, she once said, ‘look, a helicopter full of ice cream has come, it has brought so much ice cream . . . give me some, why are you not giving me some ice cream?’ And I would give her ice cream and she would calm down.

A patient dying of cancer had been very restless throughout the night. In the early morning, she opened her eyes and stared fixedly into the corner of the room where no one was standing. She said, ‘Mom, I’m so glad to see you.’ She smiled. After saying this, the tension in the room from the family eased. After her comment, the patient died peacefully.”

“A 52-year-old woman was dying of a failed transplant. She was terrified of dying and often spoke about how she was never going to give into death. Two days before her death, she kept looking over my shoulder and laughing and smiling at someone standing behind me. There was no one there. I asked the patient who she was talking to and she told me her dead father. Then she said ‘Okay, all right. It’s ok, I’m not afraid.’ She then died very peacefully, smiling. It was such a relief to see the poor woman finally at peace.”

In the last two months, after she recovered from her coma, she could be in a strange state, as though she did not know where she was, she did not know me. She thought she was in hospital and I was a nurse looking after her; she would ask me if I had children, how many did I have, etc. She would thank me for looking after her and she was feeling better because I was there. Then she would come out of that state, she would realise she was at home and I was her daughter.

“An elderly woman kept talking to her mother and her brother. Both of whom were deceased. She carried on several conversations with them. She would smile and drift off to sleep. Finally in a conversation with them she agreed that it was time to go home. She died peacefully.”

“A 67-year-old woman saw her husband who had died four years previously with her 22-year-old deceased dog. She stated that her husband had taken her hand and along with the old dog told her he would show her the path to follow to be able to die peacefully.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Work in Progress

 

Sketches of the five sculptures:

 

 

Drawings of the sculptures:

 

 

 

 

 

I printed the drawings on see-sheer paper to add on the dream-like quality of deathbed visions,

and they look great under the light.

 

 

 

 

Raw audios and videos

 

The mock-up of the exhibition room was done in PhotoShop, and I added the video element inside the space using Premiere.