IMP VO STRAHU

For almost two months now, I have been washing bones; it has become my daily ritual. From flesh to bare bones with remnants of fat and tissue, with a repulsive smell and yellowing water, condensation of grease coating the walls of the container—now they almost do not smell, the water is practically clear to the eye. What has this done to me? It is as if I were washing my own bones, or perhaps the bones of my skeletons in the closet—long-forgotten traumas, stories, people, feelings.

This morning I heard gunshots from a rifle; judging by the echo spreading through the area, there were approximately four. Not far from my home, there is a deer pasture. I always see them from a distance, driving past on my way home. Innocent, driven creatures, like all of us, to some degree. Perhaps this is merely the logical chain of my consciousness—gunshots, a rifle, a pasture, the culture of eating game—or perhaps this morning truly became the last for someone.

I am not trying to be a moralist, though such attempts have been made. I eat meat, which clearly points to the weakness of my character, and to concern for my health, considering that since childhood I have been prescribed to eat meat because of a blood disorder. Trying to change the world, to resist, to call others to righteousness that I myself was unable to root in my life, I suddenly realized that this changes nothing. The world is as it is. This does not mean that one should stop trying, and yet the world is a test of the soul.

By cleansing the bones, I was cleansing myself, confronting a multitude of prejudices, painful memories, and protest arising from within. And all of this is a product of consciousness—while the bone-piercing smell, from which there is no escape, the truth of decaying flesh, and what remains behind as a symbol of the eternal cycle, the antiquity of the soul, and proof of life—bones—this is the truth from which we flee in fear. In fear of not measuring up, of wasting time, of not being valued. Corporations profit from our fear, turning us into perpetual engines, luring us with illusions of a better future, of achievements and heights. I do not condemn aspirations, being a slave to them myself.

08:52 — another shot.

I wish only that people would learn to look inward, to want to see the truth of their desires and actions, before—

08:53 — a shot —

—surrendering themselves to the power of illusions.

Another part of the project, dedicated to grind, the mask, and sound—I did it motivated by an attempt to demonstrate that I, too, can. Realizing that this was pretended, that I was in opposition, I do this for my shadow—as an idle hymn to the darkness that has always pointed me toward the light, remaining its own mistress.

In various cultures, bones are a sacred element used to connect with the world of ancestors and spirits, for the transition of souls into another dimension, for the transformation of a person into a shaman who worships spirits and protects nature. Part of the ritual was often the washing of bones. To be reborn, one must first renounce everything that exists—personality, flesh—remaining as bones, which are closer to the world than we are, closer to stone, to cliffs, to the ancient foundation upon which the world was built. Only then, through the echo of howling winds and the songs of the first people carried by them, can we return to ourselves, see life with the heart, with our spirit.

Our world is a school. We come here to teach the heart to love, the spirit to be, and the mind to be silent. Only then are we capable of sensing and living far more than what is visible in this material world.

09:03 — a shot.

Life is a cycle; it is not finite. The soul becomes finite only when it exists in violence. We must learn to listen to our psyche, which notices far more than the untrained mind stuck in opinions and paradigms.

Underwater mammals are not only sentient beings living under repression and the threat of extermination; they are also a symbol of humanity’s connection to the subconscious, to the deep layers of the psyche that are blocked by consciousness, which is daily assaulted by information, problems, and the fleeting, accelerated tempo of industrial society.

Human beings emerge from the waters of the subconscious, of formation, from the mother’s womb—a state in which a person exists on the boundary between two realities. Neither alive nor dead, neither born. At this moment, we are surrounded by water, as if dwelling in a world of underwater mysteries, distinguishing incomprehensible voices, tonalities, and sounds. We perceive the world through the emotionality of sound, through tactility, existing on a different level of reason—one in which we are receptive to the world without judgment or prejudice. We are simply a part of it, unaware of causes, unburdened by questions. The world is incomprehensible and boundlessly fascinating.

The process of making the Death Mask.

This was my first test of the technical aspect of the installation. Huge thanks to Daniel Haas and Daniel Walter for lending the items and consulting.

A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another, often changing a physical quantity (like sound, light, force, or temperature) into an electrical signal, or vice versa, for measurement, monitoring, or control.

Here is the video from the testing session.

The realization was planned in a similar way as shown in the video. Instead of the plastic tank, a metal deep plate will be used, on which I would place my own death mask, and non-Newtonian fluid instead of water for a stronger effect, due to its responsiveness to sound.

I decided to lean towards sound / music / death mask to develop the idea that sound is the only ephemeral thing that connects the underwater and earthly worlds—us and them. As an inescapable matter, it is also a weapon, a way to express thought, emotion, beauty, and sorrow, and to expand consciousness.

Photo by IMP3rrrfct

Interestingly, in many cultures and rituals, the significance of the mask is potent. Used in different ways, the action of wearing the mask seems meaningful. Why is that? My feeling tells me that it has something to do with opening the mind to the process, letting the body and its ancient wisdom guide it, since in many African tribes it is presently practiced for ritual dances and trances. For comparison, in Japanese Samurai culture, the mask was part of the armor and was used to intimidate the enemy. I would also interpret it as a battlefield personality, brought to life at a specific time, as well as a symbol of the bravery of the wearer, giving him power and making him fearsome.

Photo by IMP3rrrfct

Photo was retreived from Pinterest.com

Another manifestation of it is a Death Mask—a plaster or wax likeness made from the face of a deceased person, capturing their features immediately after death for use as funerary effigies, models for portraits and sculptures, mementos, or even for pseudoscientific study. It often served as a memento mori, especially popular during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance (15th–17th centuries), and as part of the vanitas art genre in the Dutch Golden Age, emphasizing death's inevitability and life's brevity. It saw renewed popularity in the Victorian era, coinciding with high infant mortality, appearing in literature, jewelry (mourning rings), and photography.

I also discovered a blend of these elements that became essential for my internal process, since thoughts about my own mortality and the choices regarding what I decide to spend my time on in this life became clearer, as well as my own persona, starting to peel off the layers of other people’s paradigms that had clouded my judgment over the years. I discovered the Kapala Skull.

Photo was retreived from Pinterest.com

The word Kapala is a Sanskrit term meaning skull, bowl, vessel, or begging bowl, and refers to a decorative human skull used as a ritual implement in both Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. They were often carved with decorative designs or elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels. There are two main types of kapalas—those that use a full skull, and those that only use the skull cap or top half of the cranium.

Kapalas were usually made from skulls collected at sky burial sites, an ancient Tibetan burial custom still practiced today, in which the bodies of the dead are dismembered and scattered over open ground to “give alms to the birds.” It is a ritual with profound religious significance, representing the ascent of the soul to be reincarnated into another circle of life.

Another big theme I’ve touched on during my research was grief among animals. It might sound unbelievable or even untrue to some—animals do show signs and routines around grief just as much as humans do. This resonates very much with my being; I hope it does, or can, with yours as well.

Here are some more articles dedicated to this topic:

https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/103320/student/?section=9

Here, my thoughts went into imagining what I would experience with my conscience and empathy if placed in such conditions. Thoughts started drifting in the direction of the reasons → sacrifice.

Animal and human sacrifice

Reasons, traditions that are forgotten and replaced by consumerism in a pretty package, leaving the gruesome reality of the slaughterhouses away from human eyes

Rituals around death and burial: from grieving to celebrating, singing and dancing, devouring the dead, redressing the dead

Photo was retrieved from Pinterest.com

I started researching more about the traditions around death and burial rituals, which were often intertwined with sacrifices—to praise the gods, to ask for an easy transition of a family member’s soul into the afterlife, to ask for luck and ease in lively endeavors. It came to my attention that even though blood, as the water of life, was important, the bones held a very special place in different kinds of rituals across cultures.

“The most important and widely held belief is that bones can be reanimated and therefore are essential to rebirth. This conviction is especially common among people in northern Eurasia as well as in parts of Asia and can also be found in the myths of Germany, the Caucasus, Africa, South America, Oceania, and Australia.”

Source: https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/taylor.php 

Photo was retrieved from Pinterest.com

In different traditions, skulls, vertebrae, and shoulder blades (scapulae) are believed to harbor special powers that lend them ritual significance. The conviction that bones are living leads to the belief that they can communicate. One of the bones used widely in divination is the scapula.

A ritual using a scapula (shoulder blade) is most commonly associated with scapulimancy, a form of divination where an animal's scapula is used to foretell the future. This ritual has two main forms: apyromantic, where the bone is examined after slaughter, and pyromantic, where the bone is heated until it cracks.

Photos by IMP3rrrfct

Here, my thoughts circled around bones, sound waves, and music. At the same time, working part-time as a cook and dealing with wild meat during hunting season, I decided to legally retrieve the bones from a trash deposit, since large parts of the wild animal bodies were not used for cooking due to the lack of meat on the bones. I cleaned the bones myself, starting the maceration process, which has been ongoing for the last 2.5 months. This process turned into a ritual for me, because I must take care of the bones every day, changing the dirty water for new water. It became a recapitulation experience, forcing me into the ancestral memories of the times when humans hunted and dealt with the gore of their own food.

Bone Conduction - musical instruments made from bones  

Article: 

Researchers found that frequencies and timing are important, further placing the recorded sounds onto the Zipfian Distribution system.

The Zipfian Distribution is a statistical model where the frequency of an item is inversely proportional to its rank and was originally thought to be a system of human language, where the most common and short words are used more frequently.

What are marine mammals actually talking about, and can it be broken down into something similar to human language?

Talking to dolphins

In this video, multilingual YouTuber Xiaomanyc, together with the Dolphin Research Center in Florida, explores the idea of talking to dolphins and breaking down the whistling system animals use for communication. The Dolphin Research Center is a nonprofit that rescues and cares for dolphins that can’t be returned to the wild, and you can visit them at their website: dolphins.org

Professor Laela Saying Dr. Kelly Jaakkola

In a different source, I discovered how scientific research groups visually and audibly classify the recordings of mammal “conversations.” It became evident that most marine mammals use what presumably represents each individual animal’s signature voice. Especially interesting is the observation that they often use it to mark their own presence in the group, as well as for a cub’s calling, where the mother marks her presence by repeating the call more frequently. Can we assume that these are the names of the animals?

The Sperm Whale “phonetic alphabet” – this term was used among researchers and was also criticized for its limitations, which imposed the idea that whales use language in the same way humans do, while they could be using it as music, transmitting emotions through sounds without using words.

What is the music that embodies grief and sorrow the most? – It’s the bass line: a repeating four-note idea, a simple ostinato, the so-called lament bass.

Examples: 

My first draft of the project:

The installation consists of a water tank with a submerged underwater speaker that produces sound waves made visible, while simultaneously a submerged underwater microphone captures and passes the sound to the spectator’s headphones.

Maybe: interactive. The spectator can regulate the pitch and the speed of the soundtrack to a certain extent, as a metaphor for control over the fate of the natural world.

This installation symbolizes the cries of marine life and the emotional world beneath the surface of human intellect, where water becomes the binding, empathic matter, bringing us back together.

Note: In the process I’ve changed my decision about the interactiveness of the installation to express the feeling of helplessness that I experience when confronted with the topic and the hardships the animal world is going through.

Coming up with this idea, I started breaking it down into elements in order to deepen my process and not stop only at the original form.

INSPIRATRION 

If you want to know more about the event, here is the link to a publicly accessible documentary film, made by members of The Sea Shepherd organisation.

No Escape: A Volunteer’s Account of the Grind

#SeaShepherd is an international, non-profit marine conservation organization known for its direct-action campaigns to stop illegal fishing, whaling, habitat destruction, and wildlife slaughter in the world's oceans, using its fleet of ships to confront poachers and enforce marine law through hands-on intervention and documentation. They defend marine life from whales to krill, remove illegal gear, and work with authorities to protect vulnerable ecosystems and species from illegal exploitation.

Thinking about the idea for the project, I wanted to change my approach from following the form to following the process, in order to be challenged and pushed into the unknown by the research, trial, and failure.

The other foundation for my choice of the topic was a trigger. I’m always drawn towards personal interest and deep spiritual and psychological development, and often I prefer not to share it before I come to a conclusion or revelation myself. That is the reason why for this project the trigger was more than just a reflection of my views on life and the world. It touched my moral code as a human being that I identify with and, in my understanding, by carrying this ‘title’ I want to transmit the responsibility for my decisions that support or harm other humans and other beings.

I’ve decided to work with something that is truly important to me on a wider scale of existence, that spreads beyond my own egocentric being. I do not judge or blame anyone for their decisions, and I choose for myself to expand my horizons to unify with the world in all its expressions and colors, and by talking about the beauty and gore of the world, I express my being, dedicating precious time and the gift of speech to it.

THE GRIND or the “Grindadráp” (often shortened to “grind”) is the controversial, traditional community whale hunt for pilot whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands, a centuries-old practice where pods are driven to shore and killed by licensed hunters, a significant part of Faroese culture and history but facing modern criticism. It's a community-organized event, distinct from open-ocean whaling, involving herding the marine mammals to a bay or beach.

I want to note that I am not here to express any opinions towards the event and the culture around it, but to cause a discussion and contemplation about the world and its expressions of human culture, blended with its brutal history of survival and adaptation. As a journalist and an artist, I want to keep my intellectual opinion to myself, and to reflect on what the tendencies of a blinded and violent consumerist culture do to me as a being, triggering primordial animalistic memories, pushing me into a fight-or-flight mode and daily anxiety.