"The more we analyze, the more ambiguous things become."
"Being a person means never being sure that you're one."
- Timothy Morton
I’m interested in the relation between artefacts and human beings/ the world. To investigate this relationship, I’m collecting objects that in my view are being often disregarded, our relationship with them being denied. For example a lonely nail in the wall, the light of a toaster only there for its heat, a pillar that everybody walks around. How do they influence our relationship with the world and each other?
I am discovering ways to encounter them, for example by taking them from their original context, removing them from their functionality, they obtain the right to exist without functioning. However, by doing the opposite, enhancing their functionality, as in the case of the toaster, our relationship with them might emerge.
Picture eliminated by computer.
The capturing process dissociates the object
from it's context and functionality.
The process by which I collect these objects makes them lose even more context and relationality, this then opens up to new relations and possibilities.
During reproduction process elements get lost.
During reproduction elements get lost.
Durng reprodction elmnts get lost.
Process of orphaning
I am a metal pillar. At one side of me, there is a rectangular metal plate welded onto me. I am painted in black but I have more patches of other colours of paint over the black layer. I hold up part of the ceiling. My existence proves the existence of ceilings in my world, and that of gravity, pulling ceilings down. I enable you to bump against me. I constrain you to having to walk around me.
You become someone that has to find another route. You become someone that walks around. The structurality of the building is magnified in your experience.
The world becomes a place in which you have to adjust your route because of me. I conceal the weight of the ceiling.
I involve you in the act of adjusting. I also involve you in your vulnerability of walking into things. I alienate you from the harmlessness of the world.
"I remember reading about a court case where a man tried to stab a judge with a pencil. It's obvious that the pencil lends itself to precisely that kind of use. It's not as lacking in dominance as you might think.
[...] I use the pen, I make the mark, but the pen is also using me. The pen could be said to be allowing these kinds of marks. I can't do just anything with the pen."
- Don Ihde
Experiment: becoming pillar, holding up part of the ceiling, if you move, the ceiling will collapse.
Comment on this: During the designed encounter with object "Inside of headphone" (pictures at the right), a lot of focus was on the word orphan, and adoption. This effect of this was something I wanted to explore. It brings with it many complexities and associations (adoption/refugee system) that get priority over the actual object itself and how we relate to it. Therefore I have chosen to distance myself from this metaphor.
In our everyday life, we encounter many objects that do not enter our consciousness. These objects are so much part of the space they are living in, that they become insignificant. Of these objects, I am interested in the artefacts that have had some functionality, or have the appearance of having had some functionality. What this functionality is might be unclear.
I call these objects/artefacts “orphans” referring to their lack of relationality to the rest of the space, or the rest of the activities and people in it. By collecting these orphans, analyzing their character, and designing encounters with them, I hope to create more empathy for these objects. I believe this will make the spectator more aware of other orphans that they encounter in their everyday life, and enjoy their presence.
I am toasting. Do you hear the buzzing? Do you feel the heat? I enable you to see the heat. For just 2 and a half minutes. During this time, the world becomes a place in which toasting happens. Whenever you start me, it starts. Two and a half minutes in which I exist. Suddenly, you have two and a half minutes for which you have to find a purpose. What do you do with this time? This frame of time would not exist without starting me. Do you just wait? While I toast?
Experiment: Becoming the pillar.
Audio file plays about the identity of the pillar, if you move, you will hear the ceiling collapse
Template for analysing the collectibles
Name of the part
Location of the part
Found or searched for
What do I enable you to do? What do I constrain you to do?
What do I make you? What kind of person do you become? What is magnified in your experience, what is reduced in your experience?
What does that make the world? What do I reveal of the world? What do I conceal in the world?
What do I involve you in? What do I alienate you from? On an abstract level.
What does my world consist of? / What materials?
Is there a time dimension?
Picture eliminated by computer.
The capturing process dissociates the object
from it's context and functionality.
The process by which I collect these objects makes them lose even more context and relationality, this then opens up to new relations and possibilities.
By moving, you are excluded from the pillars identity.
"Only the nonparticipating audience can watch the [...] behavior." - The Exercise of Interactive Art - Arjen Mulder
I enable you to see heat. I am toasting. You see me toasting. My heat creates a smell. You can smell toasted bread. I constrain you to toast your bread in me. You cannot toast your bread without me.
You become a heat-seer. A toasting knower. Toasting or not toasting is magnified. So is the time it takes to toast. You become someone that waits for the toasting to be finished.
The world becomes a place in which toasting happens. In the world radiating heat can glow. I conceal that heat can have other forms than radiating glow. I conceal the toasting intensity. The time it takes to toast a piece of bread is revealed and becomes a concrete unit of time that you have to relate yourself to.
I alienate you from creativity; the creation of your own toast is performed by me.
Heat
Toasting
Smell of bread
Someone that waits
Time
Passivity
If we define the object as a pillar with a metal plate, the object on the right can be it's brother..
I am a metal pillar. At one side of me, there is a rectangular metal plate welded onto me. I am painted in black but I have more patches of other colours of paint over the black layer. I hold up part of the ceiling. My existence proves the existence of ceilings in my world, and that of gravity, pulling ceilings down. I enable you to bump against me. I constrain you to having to walk around me.
You become someone that has to find another route. You become someone that walks around. The structurality of the building is magnified in your experience.
The world becomes a place in which you have to adjust your route because of me. I conceal the weight of the ceiling.
I involve you in the act of adjusting. I also involve you in your vulnerability of walking into things. I alienate you from the harmlessness of the world.
About this research
I’m interested in the relation between artefacts and human beings/the world. To investigate this relationship, I’ve started collecting objects that in my view are being often disregarded, our relationship with them being denied. For example a lonely nail in the wall, the light of a toaster only there for its heat, a pillar that everybody walks around. I am collecting unarchived objects. How do they influence our relationship with the world and each other?
Process
So far, my process has existed out of:
Finding 'neglected' objects and 3D scanning them, then 3D printing them.
Designing encounters with the objects.
Sharing my way of finding the objects.
To investigate the relationship with this objects, I am discovering ways to encounter them. For example by taking them from their original context and thus removing them from their functionality, they obtain the right to exist without functioning. It also gives me room to analyse them.
However, by doing the opposite, enhancing their functionality, as in the case of the toaster, a twisted relationship with them might emerge.
"The more we analyze, the more ambiguous things become."
"Being a person means never being sure that you're one."
- Timothy Morton
Collecting:
What artefacts would I like to investigate?
One of a kinds, loners.
Objects removed from their group.
Broken things that are still alive.
Objects that seem uninteresting, not worth looking into.
However in philosophy these objects are often used to explain the most difficult concepts
Indication of functionality
Everything appears to have (had) functionality
Dated things, things of a past era.
What do I do with those objects?
Do a translation
Either taken them further out of their functionality
By abstracting them
In which a dimension of empathy is added
By taking them out of their functionality they obtain the right to exist without functionality; therefore appreciate them for their being
Making their functionality experienceable
"I remember reading about a court case where a man tried to stab a judge with a pencil. It's obvious that the pencil lends itself to precisely that kind of use. It's not as lacking in dominance as you might think.
[...] I use the pen, I make the mark, but the pen is also using me. The pen could be said to be allowing these kinds of marks. I can't do just anything with the pen."
- Don Ihde