observations (process)

inspiration pictures from the ‚Victoria and Albert‘ museum

group projectteam:

richard thorner (F)carolin reuter (P&S)kuan-ü huan (P&S)wolfgang jarnach

starting to observe

the V&A Museumthe Brombton Cemetery

How would you like to be remembered if there

wasn’t graveyards?

11.10.10

fresh out of the german box I:

!observation!

06.10.10

inspiration pictures from the brombton cemetery

11.10.10

light & shadow

structure

colours

I visited Brompton Cemetery early this week and i was fairly shocked to see that this ama-zing place had become a place to drink, catch a suntan, catch up with friends and mainly just a detour for busy workers to get to and from the tube station. Who am i to judge as i was no better than them! but i ask the question do we really need graveyards/ cemeteries we seem to live in a world that doesn’t have time to stops. why do we need them? ok you may visit a few times but time goes on and you find it harder and harder to take the time out of your life to go and see your loved one.

while i was there i saw one small children playing on the grave stones with not a care in the world, he was just playing and his mother wasn’t to phased by him do this, the only concern she had was that he was care not to bang his head or fall over, while this was going on, a women stops in horror to see that he was climbing over graves, and yet he still carry on,

so i ask should we change the way we look at cemeteries? richard thorner

visitors

lost feathers

we all loose our feathers

future us – future dust

pheonix from the ashes

The Roman poet Ovid wrote the following about the phoenix:

Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odorife-rous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these ma-terials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird, a young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent’s sepulchre), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and depo-sits it in the temple of the Sun

what if a cemetery could give birth to something new? a birthstation above a graveyard? would you want your child to be born above a grave? new life from the ashes… phoenix from the ashes!

wolfgang jarnach

MONIKER International Art Fair

Polly Morgan‘carrion call’

Wood coffin, taxidermy & quail chicks

17.10.10 wolfgang jarnach

Instead of the typical ce-metery, what if for every person that sadly passed away a brick was made and then laid down to create the foundations of a new building of some sort? what would that building be? hospi-tal, church, houses

richard thorner

What if instead of going to a cemetery, you go online and send a mes-sage via a website? apps for phones? As we know we are being lead more and more by technology


fb page of lovely olive, which sadly died in haiti in jan 2010

i attached a recent picture of olives fb page. she sadly was called out of life at the earthquake in haiti in january 2010.please note two things:1. the text in her about box on the left hand side, under her profile picture:–>’in PARADISE untill 15th of Jan’ !!!2. and there is at least one comment everyday, ever since!

we organized a charity show in loving memory of her (she was a fashion student, too and graduated in 2009). by selling one outfit out of the collections of ten designers and her complete graduate collection, we raised funds of over 15 000€ (9000€ with her coll-ection, only!!!)

frühromantisches Gedicht von Friedrich von Matthisson (1761–1831):

Einsam wandelt dein Freund im Frühlingsgarten,Mild vom lieblichen Zauberlicht umflossen,Das durch wankende Blüten-zweige zittert,Adelaide!

In der spiegelnden Flut, im Schnee der Alpen,In des sinkenden Tages Gold-gewölke,In Gefilde der Sterne strahlt dein Bildnis,Adelaide!

Abendlüftchen im zarten Laube flüstern,Silberglöckchen des Mais im Grase säuseln,Wellen rauschen und Nachti-gallen flöten,Adelaide!

Einst, o Wunder! entblüht auf meinem Grabe,Eine Blume der Asche meines Herzens.Deutlich schimmert auf jedem Purpurblättchen:Adelaide!

the german poem by Friedrich von Matthis-son (also a song bei Beethoven) includes the line: ‘Eine Blume der Asche meines Herzens.’ the english translation would be: ‘a flower out of the ashes of my heart’


It was 3 years ago that my grandfather sadly passed away. According to our tradition, the deceased body should be placed in fridge inside house for more than 7 days before the body was buried. In our religion, we believe in reincarnation. We believe the rebirth of a soul in a new body of whichever creature. However, there is no chance for us to know which one he is going to be.

During the period my grandpa’s body stayed, what amazingly happened was a pigeon ele-gantly stood in front of the home gate. We all felt it was grandpa’s soul temporarily stayed in the pigeon. My parents told me it walked around the house and garden and to see every-one in the family for the last time. Not until he saw the people he remembered mostly would he leave. I took these photos at night by mobile phone. No one fed or disturbed the pigeon during these two days.

I thought I saw a short-time-span soul transmigration.

Does anyone have similar experience? In your faith, do you believe in reincarnation? What do you think you will be in your next life? What do you want to be in your next life, male, female, human, animals?

18.10.10 kuan-ü huan

I met a 60ish aged guy who lives near the area for so long. And asked him some questions in the cemetery:

Q. What are you doing here?

A. I’m doing exercise, walking.

Q. Do you often come here to exercise?

A. Yes, lots of people come here to exercise, here is like a park, everyone comes here for picnic or sunbathing in summer, some even naked.

Q. Don’t you feel odd if somebody’s naked here?

A. No. In summer people are sunbathing, gathering and playing badminton here. Don’t you do sunbathing in your hometown?

A-me. ……. yes, but definitely not in a cemetery. Mostly go to beach.

A. This cemetery used to be open till late night. But they don’t do it now because some bad things happened, such as mugging, sex…..so it’s now closed at night.

A-me. Having sex here? that’s impressive.

Q. Why they cut vegetation in the middle path but not in sideway paths?

A. The keepers tried to keep some areas uncut to let birds and butterflies come here.

Q. Any famous people buried here?

A. Emily Shirreff….


A new way of remembering

If we would plant a tree or flowers or donate a bench for the person who died, we could build a park where the relatives could remember the dead.

What if we were not just standing in front of a gravestone remembering the person buried and praying, but instead we would sit on a bench or sit under a tree and think of the person who died? Wouldn’t you feel closer to them?

18.10.10 karolin reuter

ceremonies of death

Human burial practices are the manifestation of the human desire to demonstrate “respect for the dead”Cultures vary in their mode of respect. And in different Cultures The ceremony can be exactly the opposite.Among the reasons for this are:

Respect for the physical remains. If left lying on top of the ground, scavengers may eat the corpse, considered disrespectful to the deceased in many (but not all) cultures. In Tibet, Sky burials return the remains to the cycle of life and acknowledge the body as “food,” a core tenet of some Buddhist practices.Burial can be seen as an attempt to bring closure to the deceased’s family and friends. Psycho-logists in some Western Judeo-Christian quarters, as well as the US funeral industry, claim that by interring a body away from plain view, the pain of losing a loved one can be lessened.Many cultures believe in an afterlife. Burial is sometimes believed to be a necessary step for an individual to reach the afterlife.Many religions prescribe a particular way to live, which includes customs relating to disposal of the dead.A decomposing body releases an unpleasant smell, so burial is a way of preventing that smell from reaching the open air.

Another very important point is to ‘build’ a place or object to remember the lost person.What if, despite all this points the burial leads to a way in which the dead person can so-mehow be part of something to show respect and memory.

For example the cremated person will turn into a brick and the brick will be used to build a public place to remember all the persons which are part of it. This becomes interesting when the outcome is something which is useful for the public, like a hospital. I think it would be in-teresting to add the aspect of death and birth (circle of live/ or reincarnation). Why not build a birth station out of bricks of cremated lost loved ones.


For example the cremated person will turn into a brick and the brick will be used to build a public place to remember all the persons which are part of it. This becomes interesting when the outcome is something which is useful for the public, like a hospital. I think it would be inte-resting to add the aspect of death and birth (circle of live/ or reincarnation). Why not build a birth station out of bricks of cremated lost loved ones.

alternatives to burial

In most cases these alternatives still intend to maintain respect for the dead, but some intend to prolong the display of the remains.

Burial at sea is the practice of depositing the body in an ocean or other large body of water instead of soil. It may be disposed in a coffin, or without one. Because of the particular logis-tics of scattering ashes at sea, there are commercial services that do so for a fee.Funerary cannibalism is the practice of eating the remains. This may be for many reasons: for example to partake of their strength, to spiritually “close the circle” by reabsorbing their life into the family or clan, to annihilate an enemy, or due to pathological mental conditions. The Yanomami have the habit of cremating the remains and then eating the ashes with banana paste.Cremation is the incineration of the remains. This practice is common amongst Hindus and is becoming increasingly common in other cultures as well. If a family member wishes, the ashes can now be turned into a gem, similar to creating synthetic diamonds.Ecological funeral is a method of increasing the rate of decomposition in order to help fertilize the soil.Excarnation is the practice of removing the flesh from the corpse without interment. The Zoro-astrians have traditionally left their dead on Towers of Silence, where the flesh of the corpses is left to be devoured by vultures and other carrion-eating birds. Alternatively, it can also mean butchering the corpse by hand to remove the flesh (sometimes referred to by the neo-logism “defleshing”).Gibbeting was the ancient practice of publicly displaying remains of criminals.Hanging coffins are coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They can be found in various locations, including China and the Philippines.Resomation involves disposal through an accelerated process of alkaline hydrolysis.Sky burial involves placing the body on a mountaintop.Cryonics is often mistakenly assumed to be an alternative interment method, but is in fact a pseudo-medical procedure carried out to physically preserve the body in the hope that it will one day be technologically possible to revive the individual. See also information theoretical death; clinical death.


answers of the dead

imagine the brick made out of the ashes of the cremated person is engraved with a line that the dead person wants to share with the visitor. it’s not like the phrases on gravestones, which are chosen by the bereaved. It is more like an answer of the dead person, what the person that passed away wishes to share with the bereaved. obviously you have to choose this be-fore you die!

what would that be? what would you want the share with your loved ones after you passed away?


fashion of death

“Death is subject to Fa-shion like all activities and the hard line cannot be drown, and we know it.” (from Barbara Jones ‘design for death’

If death is subject to Fa-shion we can creat new ways of ‘celebrating’ it!


fashion perspective

If it’s all about touching and feeling, will we feel differently if we touch ashes by all body skins rather than by hand?

If it’s all about hugging and re-cycling, is it possible if we can make ashes with different mate-rials into a new strong artificial fabric? And then use the new fabric to manufacture clothes? We wear it as their second skin?


s e n s e s

Alternatives to memorial : conjuring up memories

Human beings are emotional animals. We feel outer stimulations physically by means of our five senses, and then by this way we have feelings, triggering emotions from inner side of mind.

I then started to wonder if there is a possibility:

if we turn the deceased body into his favourite smells or smells from his body or his house? if it is odours? will u accept it?

What can smells do? Smells remind people of certain things and trigger certain memories. For ex-ample, my grandpa’s always asked me to buy him cigarettes in grocery shops when i was little. So whenever I see or smell these 2 brands ‘555’ and ‘Long Life’, they remind me of him.

How smells are linked to our emotions and memories? Memories can be triggered by seeing, hea-ring, feeling or hearing the word for something. But there’s something different about the way we’re affected by those things and by smelling. Smells bring us to the same memory as the other senses but we experience that memory as more emotionally intense. This means that we feel it more strongly. We are taken back to a certain time and place more convincingly than if a memory was triggerd by another cue, for example a photograph or music. And apparently this is because smell physically enters our brain and goes to the same areas where we process memory and emotion. Interestingly, smells only evoke special moemories for us when we don’t smell them very often. For example, if we smell coffee every day, it’s not going to remind us of that holiday 10 years ago.

Ashes are from bones, which are the only tangible physical objects existing eventually. Of course it has certain meaning. However, if we merely use our sense of sight to remember them, for example putting ashes somewhere around you or planting it where you can see, do these activities really help you remember a person?

Why not rather go directly to something more tangible at anytime that reminds you of him more often?


Chemical Composition of Human Ashes

According to Gayle E. O’Neill, Ph.d. of TEI Analytical, Inc

Phosphate 47.5% Sodium 1.12%Calcium 25.3% Chloride 1.00%Sulfate 11.00% Silica 0.9%Potassium 3.69% Magnesium 0.418%

Plus Aluminum oxide, Iron Oxide, Zinc,Titanium Oxide, Barium, Antimony, Chromium, Cop-per, Manganese, Lead, Tin, and Vanadium in much smaller quantities. Beryllium and Mercury will be present in minute quantities.


The chemicals

A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in bioche-mistry andbiogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry.

Calcium is a soft grayalkaline earth metal, and is the fifth most abundant element by mass in the Earth’s crust. Calcium is also the fifth most abundant dissolved ion in seawater by both molarity and mass, after sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfate. Calcium is essential for living organisms, par-ticularly in cell physiology. As a major material used in mineralization of bones and shells, calcium is the most abundant metal by mass in many animals.

Sulfates are important in both the chemical industry and biological systems:

The lead-acid battery typically uses sulfuric acid.Some anaerobic microorganisms, such as those living near deep sea thermal vents use sulfates as an energy source for chemosynthesis.Copper sulfate is a common algaecide.Magnesium sulfate, commonly known as Epsom salts, is used in therapeutic baths.Gypsum, the natural mineral form of hydrated calcium sulfate, is used to produce plaster.The sulfate ion is used as counter ion for some cationic drugs.Potassium ion is necessary for the function of all living cells, and is thus present in all plant and animal tissues. It is found in especially high concentrations within plant cells, and in a mixed diet, it is most highly concentrated in fruits. The high concentration of potassium in plants, associated with compa-ratively very low amounts of sodium there, historically resulted in potassium first being isolated from the ashes of plants, which in turn gave the element its modern name. Heavy crop production rapidly depletes soils of potassium, and agricultural fertilizers consume 93% of the potassium chemical pro-duction of the modern world economy.

Sodium ion is soluble in water in nearly all of its compounds, and is thus present in great quantities in the Earth’s oceans and other stagnant bodies of water. In these bodies it is mostly counterbalanced by the chloride ion, causing evaporated ocean water solids to consist mostly of sodium chloride, or common table salt. Sodium ion is also a component of many minerals. Sodium is an essential element for all animal life (including human) and for some plant species.

In the petroleum industry, the chlorides are a closely monitored constituent of the mud system. The increase of the chlorides in the mud system could indicate the possibility of drilling into a high-pressure saltwater formation. Its increase can also indicate the poor quality of a target sand. Chloride is also a useful and reliable chemical indicator of river / groundwater fecal contamination, as chloride is a non-reactive solute and ubiquitous to sewage & potable water.

Silica is used primarily in the production of glass for windows, drinking glasses, beverage bottles, and many other uses. The majority of optical fibers for telecommunications are also made from silica. It is a primary raw material for many whiteware ceramics such as earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, as well as industrial Portland cement. Silica is common additive in the production of foods, where it is used primarily as a flow agent in powdered foods, or to absorb water in hygroscopic applications.

Magnesium ions are essential to all living cells, where they play a major role in manipulating impor-tant biological polyphosphate compounds like ATP, DNA, and RNA. Hundreds of enzymes thus requi-re magnesium ions to function. Magnesium is also the metallic ion at the center of chlorophyll, and is thus a common additive to fertilizers. Magnesium ions are sour to the taste, and in low concentrations help to impart a natural tartness to fresh mineral waters.


fragrance extraction

Organic solvent extraction

Organic solvent extraction is the most common and most economically important technique for extracting aromatics in the modern perfume industry. Raw materials are submerged and agitated in a solvent that can dissolve the desired aromatic compounds. Commonly used sol-vents for maceration/solvent extraction include hexane, and dimethyl ether.

In organic solvent extraction, aromatic compounds as well as other hydrophobic soluble substances such as wax and pigments are also obtained. The extract is subjected to vacuum processing, which removes the solvent for re-use. The process can last anywhere from hours to months. Fragrant compounds for woody and fibrous plant materials are often obtained in this matter as are all aromatics from animal sources. The technique can also be used to ext-ract odorants that are too volatile for distillation or easily denatured by heat. The remaining waxy mass is known as a concrete, which is a mixture of essential oil, waxes, resins, and other lipophilic (oil soluble) plant material, since these solvents effectively remove all hydrophobic compounds in the raw material. The solvent is then removed by a lower temperature distillati-on process and reclaimed for re-use.

Although highly fragrant, concretes are too viscous – even solid – at room temperature to be useful. This is due to the presence of high-molecular-weight, non-fragrant waxes and resins. Another solvent, often ethyl alcohol, which only dissolves the fragrant low-molecular weight compounds, must be used to extract the fragrant oil from the concrete. The alcohol is remo-ved by a second distillation, leaving behind the absolute. These extracts from plants such as jasmine and rose, are called absolutes.

Due to the low temperatures in this process, the absolute may be more faithful to the original scent of the raw material, which is subjected to high heat during the distillation process.


Perfume (by Patrick Süskind)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 1985 novel (origi-nally published in German as Das Parfum) by German wri-ter Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell, and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry. Above all this is a story of identity, communica-tion and the morality of the human spirit.


fresh out of the german box I:

!observation!

(process) 12.10.2010 wjplease scan it with your smartphone

or go to:fromgravetocradle.wordpress.com

observations (process)

Documents

ashes phoenix

new life

new building

wolfgang jarnachinstead

brompton cemetery

young phoenix issues

wasnt graveyards

graveyards cemeteries