FMP thoughts: Toy guillotine

Created by ChatGPT 5.2 using a simple prompt: Can you create an image of a guillotine made out of soft play building blocks, made from pvc, situated in a clean gallery setting please?

I am struck by the phrase 'The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle The Masters House". It sits in the same space for me as the rhetoric of Rutger Bregman, and his calls for a moral revolution.

I have been musing on creating a guillotine for a while. It's a direct reference to revolution and usurping power in the past.

My proposal to build a neon guillotine was turned down by the light night comissioners last year because it wasn't deemed family friendly enough. 

And in fact, on reflection, I don't want to create a guillotine without nuance because I am not calling for violence. Violence is a tool of colonialism and patriarchy. And the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house.

What is called for is imagination, play and creativity, if we are to find new ways that supercede the old. 

Instead of fighting established, inefficient systems, we must use innovation and design science to create superior, more efficient alternatives that render the old ways obsolete. 

As Buckminster Fuller (the engineer, philosopher and inventor of the geodesic dome) said in 2013, “You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” 

By creating a guillotine made of play blocks, this line of thought is implied. Revolution is necessary, but it's course of action must be led by play and creativity. I will make some tests.

While I was messing about with this digital sketch, I thought on the addition of a food stuff that could add an element of paradox. I'm not entirely sold on any of it, but I do want to experiment with it. I will think on where I could acquire some reclaimed PVC to make a model.