Echo of a Man

This sculpture enshrines the body of Old Croghan Man, an ancient life paused in time. But within his chest, a loop continues: magnesium bursts into brief fire, flickering like thoughts, like spirit, like a mind returning to itself. These flames are not memories of one man, but metaphors for the human capacity to live on in the minds of others. Drawing on Hofstadter’s theory of consciousness as a ‘strange loop,’ this work suggests that what we call the self is not a single, enduring soul, but a pattern of perception, memory, and recursive feedback. Old Croghan Man becomes a symbol of all selves preserved not in flesh, but in symbolic fire, echoing forever in the minds of those who see him.