Thanatos

Work is looking into doing a thing on skulls.
There are a lot more skulls in art than you may initially think of. Damian Hirst has the most famous one at the moment where he's made on (or encrusted on - I'm not sure ) with about 10 thousand diamonds. It's been on display at White Cube in London - but I think that show is finished now. There was berserk security - you'd be escorted two people at a time into the darkened room for a maximum of 2 - 5 minutes. Good marketing if you ask me. I heard a rumour that George Michael was thinking of buying it. I just checked. It's 8500 diamonds, and the skull is cast in platinum and *then* encrusted.
I digress.

Out of interest and excitement, I started reading a bit more about the representational aspects of skulls, and came across a chap I'd never heard of - Thanatos. A "minor" figure in Greek Mythology (he's just death after all) or, once again I've checked , and he was probably minor in the Greek pantheon due to being in charge of "peaceful death" unlike Keres who took on violent death and so therefore is obviously much cooler. Freud apparently went on later to use his name to refer to a "death drive" (early emo?) .

I'm not sure yet what there is to do with this new knowledge of this old character. He has been utilised by many a band and a couple of death cult types (despite Keres). There's just something about this name and idea that sound rich. I've had it on a postie note for a few weeks now, and that's normally the test - after a few days it'll come down from the monitor and go in the bin ... but there he is. I think he's waiting for the right cross pollination to bang into him.