Ghost in the Machine

Hey ya'll

I had some leftover specimens so I decided to come up with something artistic. Anyway this next piece was inspired by something I read about the moth and the flame. The metaphor of the moth and the flame is often used to describe tragic love and/or obsession. The moth, so enamored by the thing it loves becomes oblivious to it's deadly heat and flies towards it, only to be engulfed and utterly consumed by the heat of passion. The reality of course, is quite different, and many studies have been done on this peculiar behavior of moths to circle, and be attracted to lit objects. Some conclude that this is because the moth's navigation at night depends greatly upon the positioning of the stars and so, when an object like an artificial light bulb comes into play, the moth keeps correcting its position in an attempt to navigate but ends up flying in a circular spiral, eventually hitting the light bulb and falling down. The moth of course, gets up, sees the light, assumes it for a star, far away in the sky and tries again. But I digress, so I had some extra moth specimens lying around that didn't make it into the shadowbox when I thought of this myth and decided, to marry the moth with the light bulb.

And then, they were one... It wasn't until I was done that I belatedly realized that my contraption was not a light bulb but really a miniature gumball machine, which led to the art sculpture being spontaneously named; "A Ghost in the Machine." (the ghost, of course referring to the corpse of the moth inside the gumball machine) which is perhaps a metaphor for my mind... sweet on the outside (like a gumball machine) with the promise of rainbow coloured candy, but forever troubled on the inside, by the fluttering of an unseen ghost.