Bird writes about how using the human body as medium communicates the human presence in art making. This is very evident in his examples of handprints in cave painting or human heads made of frozen blood. The artists' presence is brought to the forefront. Bird also discusses the body as a universal medium. It is at everyone's disposal and has been used across time and cultures. Towards the end of this chapter I think Bird is hinting at the dangers of crossing to line to the commodification of the human body.
I think what Bird says about the body as medium being traces of the artists is really fascinating. I don't plan on freezing my blood into the shape of a head anytime soon, but I think that the idea of the body as an imprint is neat. I think that fingerprints have a natural beauty and artistic style to them. I think it would be interesting to use the lines and repetitions in an abstract way. I am really interested in using things that are concrete and defined but in the form of abstract art, such as finger prints or topographical maps.
This chapter also remind me of a story that my husband told me a few days ago about a young girl, about six, that he saw playing out in the snow. She knelt down on the sidewalk next to a pile of snow and plunged her whole face into the snow and left her face buried for about 20 seconds and then popped up to survey her mark making. She then moved over about a foot and did the same thing. He said she repeated this the whole length of her yard. I was super excited by this story. It's so cool to see kids amazing innate desire to create. She was using her body as medium. This also made me think more about the idea of snow as recording human movements. I think that arial photographs of a park with snow would be cool. It would automatically map human activity.
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