Position Statement

As it stands my work is foraging through the experimental stage with some frenzied excitement. My aims are to follow on from my previous project towards something more encompassing of my ideas and concepts, not to say that my previous has not done this, I am merely attempting to fine tune the details on a larger scale.

I am using the same materials (natural clays, wax, bone, flesh and fur) but have been using chemicals to achieve certain finishes to moulds of rabbit bodies, I have watched the work of Von Hagen with mixed reaction however his process are unique if not somewhat controversial.



I would like this week to attempt to preserve my own piece of muscle tissue using a similar process to plastination (as patented by Von Hagen), I am not even 60% sure that this process will work but here is a brief outline of how I intend to proceed:



 Acquire muscle tissue and depending on thickness slice thinly, this is important so that the formalin can strip thoroughly the fats and water, it must also be positioned the way it is to be presented. This must be left for no longer than 48 hours.

 The tissue must then be dried out in Ethanol, by slowly increasing the concentrate over a set period of time bearing in mind the length and thickness of the flesh.

 Forced impregnation must then be applied by means of a vacuum and the introduction of a polymer or resin, slowly depending on how the mixture bubbles, it must not boil rapidly as this renders the mixture useless.

 The result of this must then be cured by means of warm temperatures (up to 50˚c) until it fully hardens.



Further routes I’m currently following:



 Democritus the inventor of the theory of atoms

 Sophists and their ideas behind the key to a happy and inwardly tuned individual, their views are highly contradictory of even their own theories! (They taught philosophy but only to demonstrate that all philosophy is false, Pascal later observed that ‘to ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical’.

 I am giving a lecture on animal ethics nearer to Christmas as I do not feel that people understand the difference between ‘factory farmed food’ and food which you have caught and killed yourself. This is largely linked into my project.



Further notes and reading:



 Abstract of US 5089288

A method of impregnating a tissue sample with paraffin in which, in a treatment vessel, a tissue sample, which has been fixed with isopropyl alcohol, is maintained under vacuum and simultaneously the molten paraffin and tissue sample are subjected to ultrasonic vibration effective to remove the isopropyl alcohol from the tissue sample and to impregnate the tissue sample with the paraffin.



 Plastination journal Volume one







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