Life Collage
Believe me when I say that I had never done a collage that I liked until I managed to do this one. Throughout my school years I would get the Collage assignment in my arts classes and did average, the usual poorly-cut-messy-glued-on magazine ads on a piece of paper that managed to get me a passing grade. Now that I think back I can’t really say I was the artistic person during those years. But times changed and so did I. This collage is how I see the world. I started out with an old black binder that I must have had since I was in seventh grade, hidden somewhere in the closet. This binder has no value to me except that it reminds me of school and who I was, so I decided to keep it, to see when I would use it. I stashed it away in the closet, recycled, for maybe one day it would still serve me. This binder has one side nearly ripped from the-whatever it’s called that unites it to the other side. I thought, “I can’t turn this in like this, its halfway coming off”. I bound it together with some sort of masking tape, hell, at first I tried stapling the flap together, but that didn’t work. So I am sorry if you get a cut with some staple around there. I also managed to deface the already disfigured flap by ripping out the plastic cover out of anger, because the damn staples wouldn’t go through. So with the canvas “ready” I went to work. I stared at the binder for nearly two hours while I tried to think in silence what I could do with it, that didn’t work. So I thought I should take my mind off of it for a few seconds, I cleaned out my work station from old papers of the last semester while listening to some music. In this soon to be trash I discovered my old anatomy workbook; here I picked out the diagram of the human brain. I had a brain now and an idea of where I was going which brought me to placing the image of the earth on the brain. Well, before that, I unconsciously pasted the earth on the binder, five minutes later I remember about the brain and had to cut part of the carton along with the earth from the surface. The earth inside the brain is a symbol for what I believe sometimes our universe is like. It is my own metaphysical explanation to our universe; I sometimes believe that your own mind is the universe, each mind make up our reality. 115 Million Of minds are what the universe is made up, (this is the approximate number of all the human beings that have existed on this planet since the planet has existed). Of course this is a monistic view that does not fully explain some things in the universe. Soon after this I hit the wall again; I did not know what else to do. As I was becoming angry I went into the old habits and found myself looking through old magazines that I had collected over the years. I came out with my older brother’s collection of Maxim, FHM, and Lowrider Magazine along with some other magazines. In a European Car Magazine I discovered the “Hold on tight. Then let yourself go” ad and felt relief. This ad was for a Jaguar or some other fancy car like that and it featured the five holes on the page with the shift stick on the other side and I thought it was just perfect for what I had in mind. This ad came hand in hand with what I envisioned; our world. In a materialistic world where nothing matters more than riches and whatnot, this ad spoke of it. It is Buddha that professes the truth that suffering comes from unearthly desires. And it is Karl Marx with his ideals that warns humanity of the fetishism of commodities. When I see this handle for ones hand in an ad for an expensive car it brings me the vision of the millions of human beings who have and will die in the name for a false ideal. We have, for too long, given priority to everything that holds no real value to our nature, we have become alienated of our own and in doing so we have given no real value to human beings. Like this ad says, we hold on tight all of your lives only to let go of all these material things when we die. We should, instead, accumulate goods for the soul; the intellect, ideas that we can hold on tight to and never let go even until our bodies decay. After this crude reality I strove forward to portray the act of new life as naturally as I could. I used wooden matches to portray the sperm painted with red, with the exception of one. This one sperm is Hegel’s “Super-Man” he is the one that does not follow the herd, he is the thinker; the one. This sperm is actually reading the message of “Hold on tight...” and is actually thinking about its message, even if it means losing the race to exist. The other sperms are covered in red, blood, while the other is clean and intact. The material the match is a tricky one; it is a potential fire, a potential destruction, but it is also potential for light, potential warmth; these are lives good and bad. The pawns came next, this image I found in an FHM magazine which was also an ad for a car. This to me represents the logic that is life. Pawns, the everyday person, must be the ones to be sacrificed, while the higher powered pieces stand back in commodity waiting for a direct attack from one of the same or higher status. You barely see a pawn checkmate, for this is evident in both life and game. After this, came the tower of death, it is what it is. This image from a Mexican Car magazine is really an oil refinery sucking the earth’s resources. The image alone speaks for itself; in this scenario sucking from the brain, exploiting the mind of its resources. For millions of years brilliant minds have been lobotomized, voices silenced, and ideas destroyed; this represents the death of it all. I thought that this destruction was necessary for the balance of the message that is in this collage. It is with this same idea that I came upon the syringes stabbing into the brain. The brain, once intact, is now savagely penetrated and corrupted with money. Finally, as a proper welcome sign I included the “Now Entering the Universe” sign. At this point, the collage still did not feel finished so I went on and took a little time off. I tried to think again why this image did not seem complete and I knew a little bit of me was needed. I painted the remaining spaces black and filled them in with yellow, white, and red small dots watered-down a bit for a natural look. Now I had to fill the remaining spaces with something of my own, so I considered something simple and close to me. I wrote down on notepads some of the songs that I had been listening to as I was doing this collage. I wrote down “Jump in the Fire”, “Damage Inc.”, all by Metallica close to the Tower of Death for their vision of the evil forces. “Orion” by Metallica followed and was placed in the dark starry realm of space. On the brain I posted “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne for its message of hope for people in the world. Along with the sperms I posted “Do the Evolution” by Pearl Jam for its portrayal of human existence in both the music video and lyrics. On the “Hold on tight…” ad I placed “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine for its call to attention for everyone; that we should realize what we hold on to. On the top right corner I posted more songs that speak of truths. I have “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, a song which calls to an end of false beliefs. There is also “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin, a song about liberation from everything that obscures the mind. And last but not least I have The Doors with “People are Strange”, this song sums up what human relations have come to. Together, all these symbols create a picture,almost an animation for what I see in life. This is life through my eyes in a collage.
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