Interacting with Objects

The starting focus: THE FERN
1. 'Pebble Beach Affect'
  1. All those who visit a pebble beach are tempted by certain pebbles - pick them up, take them home?
    1. Why do certain objects call to us?
      1. Why do I like this pebble and you like that one?
      2. Why in an ocean of similarity do certain things stand out?
        Subconscious
      3. Neuroaesthetics
        In unchanging stimulation the brain will create variation by itself
    2. Yet as soon as you take take these pebbles home they loose their call
      1. no longer look special
        can't be as simple as not wet anymore (shiny)?
      2. They loose their aesthetic call when taken out of the environment which imbued it?
        Why isn't the nostalgia strong enough to hold that fascination?
        Is that singular to pebbles from the beach? Or true of all souvenirs?
        Pebbles are more common? They exist in your home environment anyway?
        How important is the environment an object is in to its aesthetic integration with us?
        Installation
    3. Selection
  2. Selecting a natural object from amongst hundreds of nearly identical natural objects (in its natural habitat) - yet this particularly one feel special
  3. Phenomenology
    1. 'Basically, phenomenology studies the structure of various types of experience ranging from perception, thought, memory, imagination, emotion, desire, and volition to bodily awareness, embodied action, and social activity, including linguistic activity. The structure of these forms of experience typically involves what Husserl called “intentionality”, that is, the directedness of experience toward things in the world, the property of consciousness that it is an awareness of or about something. According to classical Husserlian phenomenology, our experience is directed toward — represents or “intends” — things only through particular concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, etc. These make up the meaning or content of a given experience, and are distinct from the things they present or mean.'
      1. Husserl
      2. Heidegger
2. I am fascinated by this Fern. Entranced.
  1. Can't really tell you why beyond: aesthetically pleasing...
    1. Delicate, Fragile, Symmetrical patterns throughout yet has quirks eat
3. Conferring Status
  1. When does an object become an artefact?
    1. Metamorphosis through noticing?
      1. The moment you notice it - you truly 'see' it.
      2. Selection
    2. At what stage - when you select it rather than when you decide it or display/install it?
      1. Michael Craig-Martin - An Oak Tree 1973
        Phenomenology
        ARTISTS AS ALCHEMIST
        They transform Objects in to Artefacts/Art (rather than gold)
        Audacity? Insight? Abstract mind of the artist - vital to conferring status?
        Taste?
        Installation
        Selection
      2. Almost asking at what stage does it become art?
        ' To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of history art: an art world.' Arthur Danto - taken from 'Art and the aesthetic : an institutional analysis' - George Dickie.
Heidegger (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/)
1. Mere Things - e.g a stick (natural objects) Equipment - e.g a glass (objects with use) Works Of Art - e.g Painting (transcend use)
  1. Mere Thing: A stick Equipment: Stick used as a walking stick Works of Art: Lichen Covered Stick
    1. Hierarchy of Sticks
      1. Pierre Bordieau - Doxa
        Classification
        We naturally compare and contrast things - classify them as preferable to the other ect
        Taste
        Delicate combination of subconscious elements which lead to preferences
        Matthew De Kersaint Giraudeau (Bad Vibes Club)
        Makes self described 'ugly' sculptures - in a room full of ugly sculptures you'll like some more than others. You will have a favourite ugly sculpture
      2. Natural Objects (Sticks), which I have been collecting - as sticks have stood out to me (which is a matter of taste and neuroaesthetics - the way a phenomenological experience is created by the pleasure we experience due to the aesthetically pleasing
        Rather than pebbles on a beach sticks in a forest?
        except never in the same abundance - and usually the sticks I select for the collection are out of place - i.e. a stick on the beach
        Engaging with each natural object (Stick) as a 'new' object rather than just another stick.
        Preventing the use of language, as a tool of reference/reality/classification, from limiting what a stick is/could be
        Selection
        Phenomenology
        Collection
      3. Playing with ideas of value placed on objects - I've decided this stick is 'better' than that one, with any validity?
      4. Phenomenology
2. Hermeneutic Circle
  1. ART
  2. ARTWORK
    1. ARTIST
      1. ARTWORK
        ARTIST
  3. When - specifically - does an object become an artwork?
Collection
1. Why do we collect?
  1. Nostalgia
    1. 'The souvenir seeks distance (the exotic time and space), but it does so in order to transform and collapse distance into proximity to, or approximation with self. The souvenir therefore contracts the world in order to expand the personal.' On Longing - Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection. Susan Stewart
    2. Andy Holden - lectures with Dad
      1. Allows the audience to connect with the objects/topics through the nostalgia. Transformative.
2. Tacita Dean - Four Leaf Clovers
3. Collections made without noticing
  1. Art Sticks
    1. John Smith - My Dad's Stick
    2. Rebecca Birch - Lichen Covered Stick
    3. Jim Lambie - Phsychedelic Soul Stick
    4. Gabriel Orozco - Roko Shutu
  2. Photos of People
    1. Images I don't want to forget - awaiting later utility?
  3. 'Now the problem with a collection is realising that you’ve started one. Recently I have begun, quite unintentionally, to collect old postcards thematically. It started with finding an attractive postcard of a frozen water fountain. On finding the second frozen water fountain, I had begun a collection…' Tacita Dean, writing about her collections of postcards and of four, five, six, and seven leaf clovers. From Tacita Dean (Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2000).
    1. 'I know people whose lives are dominated by their collections, ceaselessly searching in flea markets, auction houses and specialist book shops, never resolving their quest. Whether you are collecting versions of popular songs, postcards of lighthouses or votive sculptures of Our Lady of Montserrat, your collection will never let you be. You’ve started so you must continue, and with most collections, there is no end. Whether it is postcards of lighthouses or four-leaf clovers, there can never be the definitive collection. For what is more inert than a finished collection.'
      1. Collections without the initial lure of later utility are the most interesting - you keep the first object due to aesthetic pleasure? Phenomenological experience? But after that you keep adding to the collection, because you see things which fit in the collection? Neuroaesthetics - joy from pattern and order?
        So depressing that something so magical and untouchable could have such a scientifically quantifiable explanation?
  4. I think subconscious collections are the most interesting - there is a subtler underlying connection between them. Noticing the a collection is then more likely to occur in installation (all in one draw in your house) rather than selection
4. Performative - remake the original association of an object through collecting?
  1. Stuart Edmundson - allows relationships to form between objects
    1. Object orientated ontology
Selection
1. Phenomenology
2. Taste
3. The process of selecting one object from amongst many - conferring status onto that object
  1. Selected for a) the aesthetic appreciation of the object
    1. or b) the association of event,place, or person with it: nostalgia
      1. Association with a collection? Nostalgia for the collection? Desire to add to the collection?
Installation
1. 'Installation - an end product, the work of art, a process that embraces the praxis of installing' Right About Now - Art Theory Since 1990
  1. Installations
    1. Susan Hiller
    2. Mark Dion
    3. Gabriel Orozco
    4. Curiosity Cabinet/Museum like structure often occurs
      1. Objects which are installed often take on the role of artefact - in the sense of being behind glass (literally or figuratively). Untouchable, unrelatable? We are separated from them.
        The opposite of the personal home collection
        This is due to the installation environment? Showing a collection to the masses is impersonal - the beauty of collections is the nostalgia? The history behind them?
    5. Tacita Dean - Four Leaf Clovers/Postcards
  2. Film
    1. Does physically distance from the objects, but remove the sense of the artefact being on a pedestal/behind glass. Instead makes you focus on the parts of the object the artist highlights - personal, sensitive details
      1. Bedwyr Williams - 21st Century Egg
      2. John Smith - My Dad's Stick
      3. Tacita Dean - Kodak
      4. Laure Provost - Wantee
  3. Installing a personal collection is performative - reliving the memories associated with the objects
    1. Contestations - In that you privilege certain items and the order/hierarchy in which they are collected
2. The arrangement of the collection - in a draw or shelf or gallery space. How we interact with these objects visually

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Interacting with Objects

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	Created by E S about 8 years ago