[D4LP] Artifacts of Consequence – Cornell Box

Assignment: Make a “Cornell Box” that expresses your emotional response to Artifacts of Consequence

Simple Sentence Description of the Play: “Artifacts of Consequence is about priorities.”

Complex Sentence Description of the Play: “Artifacts of Consequence is about how we decide what is important in life.”

The inspiration for the my Cornell box came from a couple of different sources. Mainly, I was determined to use only things that I could find in my apartment and allow those objects to tell me how the box should take shape. As it happens, I have lived in the same place for over a decade and therefore have a ton of ephemera from my life floating around. I imagined how I would catalog the things in my life––or more accurately, I imagined what might be cataloged by some curious observers from the future long after I’m dead and gone. Regardless, each of these items holds a piece of me.

The box itself is a repurposed candy tin. Materially, it’s meant to evoke an old, beat up, metallic, industrial environment. It’s octagonal shape reminded me of the labyrinth of the play and its storage chambers. Each object occupies a different chamber, on display for all to contemplate.

The central image/impression of the box was meant to be the mint tin, opened up to the viewer as an offering. The mints reminded me of the nutrition pills the inhabitants of the labyrinth took to survive as well as the cyanide pills Minna fed to the sedated humans in order to cull the number of mouths to feed. The open tin below a tempting, dangling key, is meant to evoke a choice: eat or escape.