EMBODIMENT OF SELF BEYOND THE IMPERMANENCE OF LIFE: REPRESENTATION OF SYMBOLIC IMMORTALITY BY PYROGRAPHY

• Main Author: Airanissa, Retno
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/87221
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Humans are creatures whose intelligence makes them aware of their own unavoidable death. This fear pushes us to search for immortality, either of the physical sort, by extending their body’s lifespan or by symbolic immortality, through creating a legacy that will be remembered long after our death. The series “Self-Embodiment” is a series of artworks from the writer’s search of ways to deal with the dread and despair of humankind’s awareness of their future demise. The problems formulation in this paper is about drawing as an intervention method to manage one’s fear, how the use of repetitive ornament is able to handle the fear of death, and how the method of pyrography and ornament pattern repetition as a representation of symbolic immortality. This final project is supported by aesthetic theories such as Art as Metaphor Theory by Hermine Feinstein. Supporting theories such as the Sense of Order Theory by E. H. Gombrich and Terror Management Theory by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski are also used to explain the psychological aspect of the artwork. The Medium chosen by the writer are wooden objects that have been disposed, or are broken or decaying, and are considered furniture or items made by the human hand. The Wooden Object functions as a representation of the human body. The creative process is done by pyrography or burning the surface of the wood by using a solder. The pyrography burns a pattern into the wood that is hard to remove and leaves a mark. Ornament repetition is how the writer manages the fear of death and reaffirms their existence through the artwork.