Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Signs of our time (1)


I learned that the bombyx mori had been sooooo artificially selected that the species is entirely dependent on human - they can't fly much and they can't survive in the wild. So that gave me an idea: if moths suddenly pop up randomly in places like walls and signposts, in the city to boot, where I haven't seen a mulberry tree - would it be like some sort of omen? Raining frogs or locust swarms like? Omens are freaky but they're kinda cool, too, since the people warned have time to change their behavior...

Silk had always been controversial, even in history. The Roman senate issued a decree condeming it as immoral and decadent - cuz the material is so thin you can see right through them. Now, while some laud it for its sustainability - even more so than bamboo fibres as you don't need to cut down the mulberry tree, others think it cruel to kill the worms for their coccoons... (and one of my dear friends think it's plain yucky, to wear worm spit on your body!) Anyway!

Back to the omen: What would people think about the "signs"? Will our interaction with Mother Nature, to coexist or to control her, be auspicious? The opposit? What's our prognosis? These are some of the things I thought about when I made the moths.






1 comment:

  1. I don't believe they wouldn't exist without us... they existed before we started using them. But that's just me. Laughed about the worm spit, and totally agree.

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