CRACKED MYTHS

I have already made a set of Icarus figures – the Icarus Project, but am keen cto develop this further as the centre piece of the Cracked Myths installation.

I originally wanted to concentrate on the surveillance theme but have become increasingly dissatisfied with this, so am developing a new Icarus suspended in pieces hanging from metal scaffolding – the ultimate cracked myth. Icarus is not a god but a mythical figure and metaphor that is continually used to describe humans as they unwittingly fall from grace. My original Icarus figures were rather more fleshy than the one I am envisaging.

This installation contrasts the heavy, weathered permanence of ancient wood with the fragile, chaotic tension of stressed wire. It represents Greek myths stripped of their divine grandeur, focusing instead on the human collateral, failed prophecies, and structural collapse of the mythic order.

An installation about Icarus in a modern context using ceramics, an old wooden block, and wire scaffolding can powerfully subvert the traditional myth. Instead of focusing solely on the literal fall, this setup can represent modern ambition, systemic failure, and the structures that both support and entrap us.

The Modern Icarus

• The Wooden Block: Represents history, tradition, the earth, or the rigid societal foundations we build upon. This the ground that Icarus is trying to escape from
• The Wire Scaffolding: Represents modern technology, data grids, construction, and the precarious frameworks of modern ambition (like startup culture or AI expansion). At the top of the scaffold will sit a golden sun representing ambition.
• The Ceramics: Represents humanity—fragile, molded by external forces, hardened by fire, but easily shattered under pressure. At the mid-point of the scaffolding ceramic wings that are actively cracking will be suspended. Maybe even drop sharp, shattered ceramic shards onto the wooden block supporting the scaffold.

Suspending the broken figure

Wire will be used to suspend heavier ceramic pieces – the wings, torso, limbs. The tension of thin wire holding fragile clay will mirror the story of the Icarus myth – the wire has to be strong enough to suspend the pieces.

Bob and Tom Bennett

1. Structure

• The Foundation: The weathered wooden block which is part of an old train sleeper,
• The Scaffold: Substantial, rusted wires found on Crosby beach are embedded into the block,
• Suspension of the elements of ceramic and feathers with thin, high-tensile wire to suspend heavy, jagged ceramic fragments in mid-air, making them look like they are frozen in a state of explosion or collapse.

2. Narrative

The materials will be adapted to represent different facets of the fall of Icarus

Wood – Daedalus’s warning

Wire: can become skeletal wing frames tangled, skeletal wing frames that trap rather than lift.

Ceramics: Unglazed terracotta feathers pooling on the wood, shattered and scorched, showing that the dream of flight was fundamentally flawed.

Porcelain body parts (hands, torsos) bursting through the wire web, partially mutated with arachnid textures, showing a transformation that is agony not divine.