Morbid Beauty

Oh three-dimensional printing, how you are changing the world of technology and laws. 
Yet with all of your innovations I can't help but look at something like modifying a printer to make a self-portrait with blood replacing ink and have true second thoughts.

"Sick, dude"

Yet despite being slightly off put by this, almost appalled, I can't help but think how seriously cool it is too. How very punk rock of Ted Lawson to do this. It's one thing to paint a self portrait, but it's super fucking metal to do it with your own blood. Rock on, Ted Lawson.

Yet I can't help but feel uncomfortable with how much of his own life he's giving up to make this. It goes against the law of nature, yet that's almost what makes it so interesting. We live to preserve and expand our lives, and to freely give up what keeps you alive like this, it's very odd. It creates a contrast in the necessity of necessities themselves in today's modern life. (I find the same contrast in a different manner through those really cool gardens that uses skulls as planters. Death is my aesthetic, bruh.)  We live now not only to create and breath, but now we live to experience and transcend. 

Wow this sounds like something else that I like to reference a lot, MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS, BRO.

"Aka: Eat, Sleep, Transcend, repeat."

I could go on and on about how much this stuff ties in perfectly with advanced society,  but just look at it for yourself. Open your slimy eyeballs and rub them directly onto the computer screen. Yes, just like that. Perfect.

So it's very obvious that instinctually we value life as a more secure and sacred thing that death as it is our first instinctual thought; the base of our pyramid. But what happens when these things become a given? My theory is that we begin to value other concepts with equal prowess as we give to life. Take for example the modern love tale. People tend to value love a lot these days, and boy does it show in our media and expectations of, well everything.

So what happens when all of the needs are met up to the point of self-actualization? Will nirvana replace the modern love story? Will we have a need for all of these things at all? With true transcendence (depending on who you ask) comes a loss of the fear of death and acceptance of what it holds. This concept, although scary, could potentially be held in high esteem if we keep advancing and setting the bar higher for what needs are fulfilled on Maslow's Hierarchy. Maybe one day, death will be just as beautiful as life.