Streetwalldecoration

Ingredients:

1 Part Rubber Glove
   - latex one-way could be an option
1 Part Spray Can
   - red tone is closer to the truth
1 Part Wall
   - any wall that can be legally decorated

Instructions:

Step 1: Pull on the rubber glove, ensuring that it is not the same hand that will hold the spray can! Although having gloves on both hands is another possible option :)

Step 2: Place the gloved hand onto the wall, holding the wall. Spread the fingers apart on that hand.

Step 3: Engage spray can aiming at the hand holding the wall.

Step 4: Take off the glove and dispose of it responsibly.

Step 5: Rinse and Repeat as often as possible.

Result:

You are now looking at one of the initial form of art that humans created. The first cave-dwelling humans decorated their cave walls with the same motive.

Reflect a moment on how far we humans have come and yet how primitive we remain. Reflect on the disconnect between us and those caves. Reflect on technology and how our primitive brains deal with the advances we have made in our tooling.

Instead of mixing orca tones that can be found naturally in our surroundings, we take a spray can created in a factory halfway around the world. Using the spray can releases deadly gases that destroy our habitat. And since the colour does not rinse off, we need a glove.

That we collectively call technological advancement.

Postscriptum

Izzy Wisher describes it beautifully in an Aeon Magazine article Cave art:

The ‘Panel of Hands’ best characterises this within El Castillo. The implicit presence of generations of hands that were placed on the cave wall are captured and preserved in a red ochre pigment, which was blown from the mouths of our distant ancestors. These hand-stencils tangibly connect us to Upper Palaeolithic people; we can reach out across the ages and almost touch our hands with theirs. This probably evoked a similar sense of connection in the Upper Palaeolithic. The hand-stencils within the cave are old, dating to at least 37,000 years ago.

We gain: connection to our ancestor, a connection that made us what we are today; a reflection on what it means to be humans that have been honoured with existence through survival; and finally a warning from our ancestor do not be the last generation to enjoy that existence.