The Box.

Death is not what we make it, it is what we are. The very spark of life i the lighting of the fuse on our existence. What we cannot escape is our overwhelming curiosity with our own demise. What COULD be. It's rare we put a value on life, we are more focused on the value of death.
My artwork atm is very much all about how each and every one of us creates a moral code we chose to live by. But in todays world it is affected by so many different things. Todays world morality is questioned itself rather than what it brings about. My work is exploring the extremity of such morality. Looking at death, in particular murder really.
It's followed on from a topic of work of my last given project at uni where i explored the serial killer and the attitudes towards someone's who takes life, how we DEAL with them, our attempts are trying to understand something we believe to be so wrong.




The current piece of work is a small donation box on a plinth, which has a sign stating, "IF YOU PLACE A DONATION IN THIS BOX, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, WILL DIE."
also all around my studio and building i work in i've put similar signs saying if you open this door someone, somewhere, will die. even signs saying, if you read this someone, somewhere, will die.
I'm testing your very morality. I'm confronting your very code's of honor and living. Want to really highlight, that even if you do open this door or put money in this box, or read this sign, someone may indeed, die. But that is not something you cannot be accounted for. or at least thats what we believe. If someone does put money in the box, what does that say about them, would they do it infront of people, would they only do it if they were alone with the box, would they imagine someone they did infact wish to die? who knows. these are questions i'm making you ask yourself. not giving you answers or a conclusion. i'm wanting you to really look, really review, what it is to be able to have, to be able to judge and critique what it is to be human, what morality gives us, what we do with it. the responsibility we bestow upon ourselves.
I'm not calling you a murderer if you do infact do what the sign says, i'm not making you one neither. You are. If you truely believe that someone will die by your hand if you place money in the box, that is your own choice and morality speaking for you. your very values telling you that its wrong, or right.
I'm not making you do anything, the problem you have then, is the problem of choice.

The Problem is Choice.

Morality. It defines the very things we come to term as good or bad. But who are we to determine those? what right do ourselves have to speak about others actions when each and every one of us holds a unique and individual code of honor and justice. In todays world morality is seemingly bound by culture and law. Only if we let it? The thought of chaos and lawlessness is indeed a scary notion for the many. Though is it not after we have lost everything, that we are truly free? Is what we are all really scared of, is indeed our very freedom? do we know what we would do with it, how it would feel, what it actually means? Would we even choose freedom?
Judgement, we all are bestowed with the ability to 'judge' but at what right? Just because we CAN, doesn't mean we should, does it?

The Value Of Death?

Is it life we hold so dear or is it the destruction of said life we hold more close to our own hearts? however monstrous and wrong we may view it, is it not our deaths that ultimately make us who we are? our depart from this world is a ending to thy story which completes the tiny chapter of existence in a whole. We are but atoms in the spanse of history and the universe, in fact much less. Thy life is a blink of the eye in the view of the reality we inhabit, this does not mean that we hold no significant value however, many of us are so concerned with our legacy and our lineage that we forget to live the very lives that we are gifted with.

The Value Of Death

What is it that death compels within us that we cannot deny it throughout our everyday life? We don't risk life and limb to simply BE in existence. Or do we? Statistics will tell us that sitting in our own home is a dangerous place to be that could take our lives. Placement of our lives seemingly depends on where we live them. To most a life spent indoors is a servitude of punishment, to others the prospect of life on the outside is a fear best not explored.
So in how we all seek meaning and value to our 'lives' are we placing a price upon our own heads or are we making a estimate for how much our death is worth? Does thy existence in 'reality' outweigh its exit from it? Da Vinci is quoted to have said, “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.” Is this true for every life?
I want to question the value you put on death. Ultimately we choose to ignore out own death, so when we face with the prospect of it we choose to think of the 'other' whoever that 'other' may be, it is a escape from the reality of our own selfless death. If I was to make you choose between one person's death and the other's? what would waver your choice? Their importance to yourself? Their social standing? Their responsibilities as a individual? What makes one's life more important than the others? More importantly, what if you had no choice? Now that is a scary question is it not?

The Progress Of Death

'Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can make you look like a star.'

What is the value of death? what is this fear we bestow upon it? need it be a means to a end. need it be a full stop on the status of life? who knows. i do not. for i am alive. for all extensive purposes. Is death thy neighbour that we do not wish to be neighborly with? My Project has taken a turn in making more questions than answers. Though those questions reveal much more about the issues I wish to raise and confront. If Death is indeed the monster we make of it, is it truly out for us on a vendetta to correct the mistake that is life?
What is this phantom life nought but a journey to a certain predetermined door. We fear death no question about it, but do we fear life also. in our crippling fear of the unknown of destruction of life do we loose value and regard on what it is to live, to be alive? There is a creeping thought into every waking moment, perhaps in the centre of a survival instincts, that at any time, any where or place this could be our death. There used to be talk and belief in a 'Good' Death, is this possible anymore, was it possible in the first place. Our Eternally curious thoughts cannot perceive the very idea of our own death. At best we can view the deaths of those around us. Take a sat back and relaxed look at the withering of the rarity of the universe. We cannot view our own death, once it is it will be all there is.
Is Deaths Illusion the very idea of life?