Snippets from the Dictionary of symbols:
– symbol of universal creation
– “it all springs from 10 and return to it” – image if totality in motion
– double of five – duality of being; life and death
– sum of the first 4 digits – 4 stages of creation
In The Displacement of the Face I’ve decided to use a system inspired by the tree of life. The tree of life make use of the numbers 0-10 to represent the creation of the world right from the beginning when it came from a pure source of energy. The numbers 0-10 could be implemented into The Displacement of Face via coordinates. The coordinates represents the boundaries of the face where each element of the face could be moved around – distorting and abstracting it.
Found on thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com
An example of executing this would be having an installation piece on a peg board. Elements of the face could be scattered around, encouraging the audience to pick pieces and put them together via stacking them or changing their orientation.
These are the pieces of hand draw elements that could evoke certain characteristics. Lines could emote different meanings from what I researched.
Thin lines are fragile. They appear easy to break or knock over. They suggest frailty and convey an elegant quality. They are delicate and give off an ephemeral air.
Thick lines on the other hand appear difficult to break. They suggest strength and give emphasis to nearby elements. Thick lines are bold and make a statement.
Horizontal lines are parallel to the horizon (hence the name). They look like they’re lying down, at rest, asleep. They suggest calm and quiet, a relaxed comfort.
Horizontal lines can’t fall over. They accentuate width. They’re stable and secure. The convey an absence of conflict, a restful peace. Horizontal lines by their connection to the horizon are associated with earth bound things and idea.
Vertical lines are perpendicular to the horizon. They are filled with potential energy that could be released if they were to fall over. Vertical lines are strong and rigid. They can suggest stability, especially when thicker. Vertical lines accentuate height and convey a lack of movement, which is usually seen as horizontal.
They stretch from the earth to the heavens and are often connected with religious feelings. Their tallness and formality may give the impression of dignity.
Diagonal lines are unbalanced. They are filled with restless and uncontrolled energy. They can appear to be either rising or falling and convey action and motion. Their kinetic energy and apparent movement create tension and excitement. Diagonal lines are more dramatic than either horizontal or vertical lines.
Diagonal lines can also appear solid and unmoving if they are holding something up or at rest against a vertical line or plane.
Curved lines are softer than straight lines. They sweep and turn gracefully between end points. They are less definite and predictable than straight lines. They bend, they change direction. Curved lines express fluid movement. They can be calm or dynamic depending on how much they curve. The less active the curve the calmer the feeling.
Zigzag lines are a combination of diagonal lines that connect at points. They take on the dynamic and high energy characteristics of diagonal lines. They create excitement and intense movement. They convey confusion and nervousness as they change direction quickly and frequently. They can imply danger and destruction as they break down.
One of the early uses of masks were that they represented the physical and metaphysical world. Visual interpretations of this use of the mask could play with clear distinctions to separate the two worlds or, how they could both intertwine and be contained on a single mask. 
Holding on to the concept of Jung’s archetypes – a primal part of humans, ever present through various cycles of life, I am required to find a constant that does not change through time.
1. I decided to use the basic face shapes of humans as a basis / system to layer the elements of the masks on. These basic elements differ as the uses of mask differs too. My aim is to find visual representations for each use, by using visual metaphors which evokes the characteristics of the masks.
2. Above are examples of the treatment that I will be using, a lot of organic textures, hand drawn to give it a primal, basic feel that comes from using the hands to draw/make.
3. I am looking into how the pieces would contribute to the meaning / characteristic of the masks.
from Magritte A to Z, Pg 104-105
“Masks can also be about disappearance, the evanescence of a persona or their transition to a different level of reality. Traditionally the mask elevates the subjective world into a state of objectivity. It allows the wearer to assimilate with the outside world at the same time protecting him or her by concealing their real self. People also hide their weakness behind the mask, in the hope that it may also help them grow beyond themselves. As such, Magritte might be seen to use the mask as a kind of mirror-image of our perceptions, which are torn between semblance and reality. As in his ‘failed portraits’, the mask allows him to avoid falsification: the individuality or a particular figure recedes behind its objectified appearance, with the result that the image is spared accusations of imitation.”
An excerpt from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing –
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across the room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking and weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
An so she comes to consider the surveryor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.
(Page 46)
One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.
(Page 47)
I’ve been painting these faces using Chinese Ink, trying to make it a daily thing and seeing if this could evolve into more things for my project. I started off with random ink blotches, and then filling in the whites for the eyes. I then proceed to filling up these faces with various expressions. Would be great if I risoprinted these faces as the colours would turn out very vibrant.
Presenza Degli Antenati, 1970
Presence of the Ancestors
“When my grandmother Luigia would see a newborn baby, she would look him over and then, without taking her eyes off him, would say his nose is like his mother’s, his eyes are like his father’s, but his expression is like Aunt Bernarda’s who lives in Verona and never visits anymore; his ears are like your grandfather’s, his mouth is like my sister Kim’s. The baby would smile and my grandmother would continue: his smile is like your uncle’s whom we haven’t seen since he left town years ago and now works (or so he claims) in Australia, but we haven’t heard a thing from him in ages.
In other words, in a heterozygote, when the gametes are formed through a pair of alleles, half of the gametes contain one of the two alleles, the other half the other allele. According to the second law of Mendel, then, the alleles separate during meiosis, going off into different gametes. Thus the phenotypic division derives from the casual combination of gametes.”
-Pg 262, Far vedere l’aria, Bruno Munari, Air Made Visible, A Visual Reader on Bruno Munari
Munari’s Useless Machines are made of painted cardboard and held together with silk threads.
“The elements of a useless machine, by contrast, all rotate upon and within themselves without touching. They are geometric in origin and exploit the two sides of their rotating elements to create chromatic variations. The public often asks how this idea came to me. This is my response: in 1933 the first abstract paintings were made in Italy; they were nothing more than geometric forms painted in a realistic manner. Morandi, it was said, made abstract pictures using bottles and vases as a formal pretext. In fact, the subject of a picture by Morandi is not the bottles but the painting captured in those spaces. So, it didn’t matter whether he painted bottles or triangles – it was all the same – and the painting was born from the formal and chromatic relationship between the elements that made up the work”
– Pg 40, Useless Machines, Far vedere l’airia, Bruno Munari, Air Made Visible, A Visual Reader on Bruno Munari.
Multiple Identities of a Face 