FMP Week 2

Still using the components from the sewing machine, I considered the screws again.

I mean to say, if I am taking the screws from all of these objects, reducing them to almost identical multiples, how can you change anything else? I will end up with piles and piles of screws, and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

This is the point where I need to ask if there is a difference at all? I began this sort of work by trying to remove some of the most important things (structurally) and end up removing the function, but with this I've taken away the most defining characteristics. Are the screws entirely meaningless? I think that because I've been thinking so hard, and then attempting to avoid thinking entirely, I've lost the plot.

So after arranging these screws, it's getting dull - it's the same thing I've been doing, and I enjoy working with the materials but no matter what I do I just don't feel like I'm making any progress. Perhaps its because this week I haven't asked my peers any specific questions concerning my work, especially important to me because the structure of my project does rely on exactly how people perceive them.

And how will people perceive them here? As photos. Because I've taken the pieces and divorced them from all semblance of meaning and purpose, are photos not just as meaningful? I will have to see about it with my next object.

FMP Week 1

The first week of my final major project saw me following my proposed timetable to deconstruct my first object. I found not only the screws that I had anticipated (it being an item of household machinery that was not at all digital) but a variety of interesting artefacts in the interior.

Starting with these. I displayed them without thought - not randomly, but in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to me on a very basic level.

After looking at it I decided that this was the way they should be displayed.

Was this a trivial decision? Yes. Yes it was trivial but I've now decided that this precise order and relative positioning is the correct way to display these objects.

If I say that, am I creating a new piece, in a sense? That's what I have made it - a piece of art that has a right and wrong composition. Whilst this could be evidence of spending far too long with a screwdriver in hand, I can't say that I dislike the line of thinking I have begun to follow.

These four objects I have also but be displayed with each other in mind.  I think they could be displayed far away from each other, however the pairs must be level. This is because the two that are shaped in a way reminiscent of bullets are perfectly identical, and the other two are not.

I think that drawing attention to this fact can be meaningful with the understanding that an identical pair and a non-identical pair are being associated. What can that communicate?

Potentially the idea that they can be equal in value. I am very aware of the fact that I am projecting this meaning onto the objects, and that they were not shared when I showed the objects to my peers - the display was compared more to that of some kind of typeface, as I had spread these particular pieces further apart on the table.

These pieces I placed in this specific order to show a sense of progression: smooth; harsher; sharper; then with fewer, straighter edges.

These pieces were the only ones that gave away what the machine was - anybody who is familiar with the object can recognise one specific piece and know it. The objects above were - like all of these objects - placed deliberately. These are in fact placed in order of height of where they sat in the machine.

What I actually did in the session of peer review was ask a series of questions to gain an insight to the  opinions of the 'cold' viewer.

When asked what words they instantly associated the art with, they responded 'metal', 'steel', 'urban materials', 'language', 'assembly', and so forth. It was interesting to be taken back to the first impressions as someone who has spent weeks roughly navigating the subject already with other projects. That alone has made me consider the fact that this work requires thought, it requires time to think about it.

When asked for a second, more developed work, I received answers such as 'work', 'broken', 'organisation' and 'reading'. I realised that the second words offered were no longer the very basic descriptions of the objects, rather a step closer to the viewer's relationship with the objects.

Only one person correctly guessed what the item was at first, and it was unexpected that when no objects were recognised the sources of the parts were in total doubt. Were they from the same or a different object? Did I buy them? Did I really take apart an object? Nobody would hazard a guess. Then, when I revealed that yes, that particular piece was the foot of a sewing machine, the assumption was instantly that all the pieces were from the same machine, that I had taken apart myself.

Lastly, when I asked "Does that matter?" the conclusive answer was "No."

Final Major Project Proposal

Throughout this course I have been able to test out new media and ways of working, and have thoroughly enjoyed the ability to explore the subject of Fine Art with a greater freedom. Since the beginning of term I have been steadily progressing away from structured projects and into self-driven study, work that has led me to consider the deconstruction of objects, and the act of removing an object from it’s only function.

I have also been considering how presentation affects perception, be it in photographs, object suspension, the varying heights of plinths or displayed simply on the floor – one piece can be interpreted in many ways if presented in a different manner, especially when the name of it can hold such power over the preconceptions of the viewer.

The main objectives of the project are to gain a better understanding of how reducing an object to components, displaying these parts, and changing the way in which we refer to them might affect our perception and understanding of the art. 

The concept of my project centres heavily around our use of objects, and our perceptions of their space, density, form and function. My initial starting point will be the deconstruction of various objects and appliances, and from there the direction of the project will depend entirely of what I find.

Possible items include an old sewing machine, a lawn mower and a DVD player. Two purely mechanical tools and one that will contain various parts of circuitry; hopefully to provide a large variety of screws and components. After deconstructing these appliances I will explore the possibilities of simplifying them, asking how much can be taken away before the item is no longer itself, at what point it becomes impossible to argue that it still has purpose.

I also hope to use this project to examine the nature of our preconceived ideas when viewing the deconstructions that I create – just how much of an impact does the title have? Is it necessary in order for the pieces to be understood at all, or will there be some other meaning attributed to the pieces?

I intend to dismantle a different machine every two weeks, and structure my analysis in two parts – the deconstruction and then the perception. This will allow me to approach each machine in a way similar enough to form a basis from which to compare the results – resting on the assumption that the contents of the objects will provide individual and unique results.

Lastly, as people’s perceptions are such a key theme of my project, I will frequently discuss and review the pieces I create with my peers. This will help me gain a wider understanding of the different interpretations that any one object may inspire, and therefore a greater understanding of the pieces themselves.

The 2D

Enthused with the wonder of the solar system (a very exciting thing) I kept thinking about gravity, and how concisely the previous line of experimentation seemed to have expressed the concept to me.

The work I then produced was a bit of a tangent. Having previously rejected the notion of including additional materials I went and brought in a fine liner. The image below is an A4 drawing using black fine liner straight into my sketchbook, and it was an attempt to create a textured density - using dots and scratches and scribbles I tried to make a 2D representation of gravity.

Whether or not I succeeded in that I am still not entirely sure - some people think it's obviously expressing a shift in density and instantly think of planets and stars, and some people have exclaimed "it's like a jam donut!", and I don't think they're wrong either.

I then was not content to move on - not least because I had run out of machines to take apart. I photocopied the piece several times, enlarging it and cutting it up and re-arranging even the image itself. 

Above is my favourite example - I had already experimented with ribboning and changing the display of photographs before, and this image greatly interests me because I have not changed the density nor mass of the image, the entire thing is there, and yet we see twice as much and only half at the same time.

We fill in the blanks to find the whole thing, and end up with two.

Whether or not I choose to make any more drawings along this line of thinking, I am not sure. I really enjoyed making it (for five hours, it occupied a fair train journey) and it was an interesting tangent to explore, however I feel that it it precisely that - tangental - to a lot of the work I was creating before.

Nevertheless, if I naturally respond to future forms I create in the future with this sort of drawing, I won't stop it from happening.