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."