This is the third of three responses I wrote about our object project "Assembling Face." //MSJ
--
You lay still on the floor and patient hands smooth crinkly aluminum across your face, covering your eyes and cheeks. Only your nostrils are left uncovered. The hands then press on to you pre-prepared cut strips of computer paper soggy with a flour and water mixture. With your eyes closed, your senses are heightened. The smell of flour is strong. The gentle pressure of the fingers is acute. Pleasurable in isolation. It occurs to you that having someone dedicate a focused, gentle touch across your face while you do nothing by lay silently, concentrating your attention only on this experience, is unusual. You are relaxed and the mask is built. Liquid rolls down the foil into hair and ears, though, sticking. You bring your hand up to wipe it away. Messy.
Within in minutes the mask is done. You slither out from under to admire.
It takes a day and a half for the imprint to dry into a hardened paper-mache mask. When it does, you don’t really recognize yourself in it. You try putting in on. Then you use a bit of extra paper and flour mixture to cover over the nose holes. The color of the mixture is somehow more bleached than the initial mask, the later addition marked with color.
This is an imprecise imprint of your face, thanks to the aluminum, but it's an imprint that's materially distinct and will likely last for a while. You’ve now got it hung on your wall. It looks nice. A conversation starter, perhaps. Or maybe a fun mask to wear of yourself at Halloween, to serve as a material critique of always having your face increasingly subject to being photographed, under surveillance, or just scrutinized.
No comments:
Post a Comment