CIMG5050 M applies plaster on top of alginate

CIMG5050 M applies plaster to my face (on top of alginate, that is — that’s the light blue layer on my face). The more plaster is applied, the heavier the mask feels, since plaster is heavier than alginate; also, while a layer of alginate on your face still lets you see the light in the back of your eyelids, plaster shuts the light out completely, and you are left sitting in total darkness. It intensified the claustrophobic feeling in me a little bit. Fortunately, the darkness / heaviness increases gradually, so you have time to adjust to it.

The end goal of this process was to make a plaster mask of my face, as documented in this blog post. This was done by my friends M and P. They used to make plaster masks based on real human faces. They would first make a cast of a person’s face from alginate, a gooey material that captures the shape of your facial features to a tiniest detail. On its basis they would make an actual mask out of plaster.

February 2007, Austin, Texas