A bit of a delay

Hello,

Thank you all for looking into the site.

I have returned from Poland and am now in Winnipeg

trying to make sense of it all and what happened.

There is lots of work since the last few posts...

so I hope to update the blog soon when final presentations are

over and I present the actual thesis proposal.

thanks again,

cheers

Aleksandra

Inside the Mutating Body

Everyday that I spend inside this place, is another day of discovery.

Old pages of german books found in the ashes of one of the old stoves,

A notebook from 1955 used by my great uncle for school.

Papers on the protocol minority groups must follow after displacement

in Poland following WWII. Money and jewelry under floor boards, hidden in the sand.

From the few rooms that I've removed floor boards and plaster covered walls,

more portals were found within rooms. Marking continuous events in additions to the house.

In total, I think there were 4 major additions to the house alone.

... it is like this everyday, a continuous build up of something distinct

yet inexplicable in words.

This intense condition that exists inside the house and makes a

human feel like the lives that once occupied this house are tearing through

the walls and trying to unfurl their story.

... and it arrives deep inside your skin, as if gnawing it's way into you.

As much as I wanted to arrive at the intended form of a wall that provided

the gesture of mutation but also function... I found myself lusting

over the process of removal of the skin (pantyhose) and leaving

this portion of the body in a state of partial removal.

Being able to freeze this moment of removal was watching this

crazy internal struggle that I feel not only exists in this house but

also a social condition of the people in the region...

and it keeps me returning to the history of displacement.

In between the supple curves of the casted body and the tearing away of the skin

was an immense territory, a territory that was awaiting to be discovered...

a habitual condition of a physical region struggling to arrive

at it's proper formation yet professing a deep internal

struggle rooted in something other.

Formation of Mutations

The architecture is beginning to experience a process of mutagenesis

(development of mutation),

in its state of atrophy

(a wasting away of the body or of an organ or part,

as from defective nutrition or damage).

The evolution is not death alone, but a state of renewal.

Actions that involve the transanimation

(conveyance of a soul from one body to another)

of the body into some other adaptable form in it's surrounding habitat.

Easily manipulated to the individuals needs, the sand

with the help of water and delicate patience can

provide adaptations to the spatial conditions of the

room.

The process shown below was quite... exciting.

This was the first trial with manipulating sand

without any intermediary between sand and plaster

(to remove the sand, one can use a pressure washer,

similar to the technique used when getting the pebble affect in concrete, this will leave the surface rather rough).

The process left me feeling I was excavating in some kind of archeological site

and uncovering hidden treasures of a secret past.

It was odd, because I knew what form I had placed in the sand,

but it's turn out was more detailed and unexpected in

its relative ease.

Right now, I am in search of a medium to be placed in between sand and plaster mold.

The sand adds a nice rough affect to the castings but the sand being used from the house is rather dirty mixed with lots of grains, beetles and glass.

It would be nice to find a fabric with exceptional elasticity such as the lycra used in pantyhose, the form would then take shape of the sculpted sand and not the wrinkles of the fabric trying to catch every corner of the surface.

Could be nice too, if done right.

Experiments

A few of the experiments done thus far using

bed springs and pantyhose.

The first experiment that looks like a robust take on

a turkish hanging lamp didn't work... which I expected but still had to try.

The pantyhose got stuck in the casting as well as the springs.

In the second experiment, the reverse prosthesis came into play

with the pantyhose and using the sandbox as my container for the

the formwork... and what came out was very...

dildo-esque, but

this did provide me with further progress into manipulating the sand

inside the sand box as a possible formwork tool.

Playpen

Inside the latex portal...

under rotten floor boards

is a sandbox !!!!!

in fact the entire house on the main floor is covered in sand (and lots of beetles).

It is incredibly odd...

Here I am, inside an enclosed space in a house with a sandbox

and with the miniature analogue theatre back in Winnipeg, it seems

oddly fitting that the two conditions have found each other

in parallel spatial situations... which is great because this makes

bringing this theatre back to Canada... a simple act.

... the work begins

Latex Portal

The chosen portal.

Seems fitting to continue from last years work.

Available Materials

Above are the few remnants of the house.

There are at least 13 bed frames with rusty chains and springs.

Latex, pantyhose, grain bushel bags, old clothes and blankets.

Rusty tools, rusty nails... rusty bike frames.

Absurd amount of religious icons, crosses and prayer books

... bottles with unknown substances.

the hands are the measuring stick...

between thumb and pinky is 15 cm

... kidding about the measuring stick.