Improbable Monument: Pyramidal-Shaped Collective Cremation Burial Site_Keynote Slides

PROPOSAL

To build an improbable monument, and introduce a new form of burial and commemoration of life for humans, which acknowledges our past, while maintaining a rational view of necessary changes in burial processes for the future.  

A tall, clear, pyramidal-shaped structure to fill with ashes; 

A "Collective crematorium".

Will include a doorway to step inside, glass walls, and a small opening at top that plummets down to let light in.

Reminiscent of Egyptian pyramids and Aztec temples.

Loved ones can include small momentos in with ashes (colored glass bottles, messages, shells, seeing eye glasses..), which may be seen due to clear outer shell and natural light source.

 

BUILDING IT

•Materials:  Glass, symbolic of physical body as dust/ transient.  Possible physical/human glue to bond glass together

***HUMAN ADHESIVE POSSIBILITES
http://tisseel.com/us/index.html

http://articles.philly.com/1987-03-19/news/26223354_1_glue-fibrinogen-middle-ear

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2440358

•Brick:  Under the earth, to support glass structure, create catacombs, various chambers

 

FORMS OF BURIAL

http://youtu.be/BHBaCZ3slis Cremation video

Norse- ship burial

Barrows- circular mounds of earth and stone

Burial at sea

ALTERNATIVE BURIAL

•Death of Animals

•Waste disposal

•Maintaining Dignity and Respect

•Tissue Digestion aka Water Reduction

•Human Compost Movement

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

•http://www.cypresslawn.com

•http://www.wikipedia.org

•http://www.pbs.org

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/explore-ancient-egypt.html

•http://www.funerals.org

•http://www.youtube.com

•Stiff by Mary Roach

The Meaning of Masonry by W.L. Wilmhurst

Improbable Monument: Pyramidal-Shaped Collective Cremation Burial Site

Improbable Monument Inspiration

SFMOMA

I found several of the exhibits currently at SFMOMA fascinating and inspiring.  Marsha Cottrell, Casey Reas, and Stan Allen, among others, comprised a wing of the museum that was very forward and encompassed a lot of the art forms we studied and experimented with over the course of the semester.  And delved into ideas and ways by which to make art that I had never considered.

Marsha Cottrell
"A Black Powder Rains Down Gently On My Sleepless Night"
Spellbinding.  A huge mulberry paper, crumpled and covered with what looked like the universe.  She used a computer to draw many lines, circles, and shapes all over in random pattern.

Casey Reas
"Process 7"
Used a system of rules to generate a performance/ behavior of objects and shapes.

Stan Allen
"First 2,500 iterations of an infinite series of plan variations"
Patterns art.  Variations of similar line segments with specific rules laid out to determine placement.

In a separate wing, I was fascinated by Eva Hesse, Sol Lewitt, and Bruce Nauman's work.  Highly conceptual, 3-dimensional works that encouraged open interpretation.

Eva Hesse
"Sans II"
Polyester resin and fiberglass.  Like rectangular honeycombs.  Catacombs.  Inviting, delicate, yet solidly encompassing.  Especially cornered with Sol Lewitt's "Wall Grid 3X3".  The painted white squares were inviting.  The scale of both pieces large and catacomb-like.  Window like. ~a Portal to eternity.

Mondrian
Showed an incomplete work.  Using tape to lay out the painting.  Geometric form.  He claimed to paint more free-form, yet appears mathematical.

The Zangshu, or Book of Burial

http://www.fengshuigate.com/zangshu.html

Mushroom Burial Suit

Improbable Monuments, beginning workings

Cypress Lawn Cemetary

analyze:  map out.  research.  explain.  Concentration in unfinished catacombs project.  Interview.  Find out specifics of select gravesites.  History.  Creation.  Whats up with the dwarf tower?  Whats up with ramp to creepy mortuary cellar?  Document historical mortuary processes.

intervention:  -thousands of flowers everywhere, scatter via helicopter?

-uncovering untold secrets of cemetary beauracracy

-expose inner workings

monument:  -underground living environments, catacombs for the living. 

-Sleeping pods.

-Project figures of men in suits and sunglasses at various areas in cemetary, flicker on and off

-3D images of deceased at their gravesites.  Projected.  They can be turning around, talking but no words come out.  Option to record message before death and have floating 3D image instead of gravemarker.  Maybe hovering over a platform.  Press a button, code and recorded message sounds.

-New ways of commemorating, remembering the dead.

-New forms of burial

-Tall, clear, pyramidal-shaped structure to fill with ashes.  "Collective crematorium".  Maybe a doorway to step inside, glass walls, small opening at top to let light in.  Reminiscent of Egyptian pyramids.  Maybe can put small momentos in with ashes (colored glass bottles, messages, shells, seeing eye glasses..)

-Music sounds when you walk through certain areas of cemetary.  Soothing opera.  Classical.  Old-timey.

-Crystal chimes in certain trees.

-Cemetary as sanctuary.  Cemetary as in-between world.  Cemetary as passageway.

-Underground altars.  Small spaces carved into rock wall to set up small ceremonial altars in rememberance.  Entrance through pyramid.