1: not animate: a: not endowed with life or spirit
A couple of the topics so far sparked some thought into my on going study of "inanimate." I think the conscious study started after I read The Floating Opera by John Barth. In one of the first chapters the main character freezes in the street. Later he is told that he suffered from intellectual paralysis. I love that phrase "intellectual paralysis." Thinking literally stopped him in his tracks. And I think this caused an interest of inanimation to invade my life. It has often taken on dark tones. I did a too much light piece where I tell a story about my life through a voodoo skeleton figurine, a dashboard hula girl, and a small globe of the earth. I finally admit that this inactivity through objects is about my own inactivity in my own life, but I only share this personal information with a white expressionless mask on my face.
So these ideas are already in my head but I do think it is a great exploration for physicality in the topic at hand. As the definition aforementioned states inanimate is without a soul. This reminds me of many of the perceived monsters, the vampire has damned his soul, the zombie may not have a soul at all. And what of objects coming to life? It is magical, it is mythical. In Jason and the Argonauts skeletons are brought to life from the teeth of a dragon. Inanimate also are the God idols worshipped by the Greeks, the Eqyptians, etc... that the Christians tried to do away with so desperately in their own religion, only to replace it with a man dead on a cross.
The body is a great tool to be used in the portraying and transformation of the inanimate.
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