Lecture 3: Art, Design and Evocation
description
Transcript of Lecture 3: Art, Design and Evocation
Lecture 3: Art, Design and Evocation
Strangely Familiar
Memory Making Memory and Material Culture
“Memory” is commonly envisaged as both the facility to remember and as the mental representation of that which is remembered.
Memory Making Memory and Material Culture
In contemporary Western societies, ‘memories’ are often conceived as possessions: we ‘keep’ and ‘preserve’ our memories almost as though they are objects in a personal museum
Karsten BottPersonal Museums
One of Each on Shelves 2000
Sophie CallePersonal Museums
La Visit Guidee(the bucket 1994)
Olivier PeyricotPersonal Museums
Object Holder Curtain 1995
Material MemoriesThe Physical Past
Objects serve memory in 3 ways:
They furnish recollection; constitute a picture of the past
They stimulate remembering
They form records, storing information beyond individual experience
Marcel Proust (1871-1922)A La Recherche du Temps Perdu
The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.
Photographs as Objects of Memory
Photographs belong to that class of objects formed specifically to remember, rather than being objects around which remembrance accrues through contextual association
Photographs as Objects of MemoryAnya Gallaccio
Photographs express a desire for memory and the act of keeping a photograph is, like other souvenirs, an act of faith in the future. They are made to hold the fleeting, to still time, to create memory
Broken English August ‘91, 1997
Clothing as Objects of MemoryJuliet Ash
Clothes relate to our feeling more than perhaps any other designed artifacts, and thus require ‘subjective’ as well as ‘objective’ analysis … clothes, their smell and texture, remind the spectator of past presence of the person to whom they belonged, their inhabiting them, a moment when they wore them. The garment becomes imbued with the essence of the person.
Clothing as Objects of MemoryChristian Boltanski (1944-)
What they have in common is that they are simultaneously presence and absence. They are both an object and a souvenir [or memory] of a subject
Canada, 1988
Clothing as Objects of MemoryMartin Margiela
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, 1997
Clothing as Objects of MemoryTejo Remy
Rag Chair, 1991 Collection Droog Design
Products acquire meaning with the passing of time, through use. However developments proceed so rapidly that many objects for use have no chance to acquire real meaning. Products should really be granted a longer useful life.
Gijs Bakker Strangely Familiar
Wallpaper Peepshow 1992
Jurgen BeyStrangely Familiar
Kokon Series 1997-99
Jurgen Bey
Broken Family Service 1999
Rachel Whiteread (1963-)Strangely Familiar
I always use second-hand things because there is a history to them …I once got a load of second-hand bedding from the Salvation Army and it was sweat and urine stained. All things I was trying to use … The smell of people, just everyday living …
Rachel Whiteread (1963-)
I was trying to make a space that I was very familiar with and that a lot of people would be familiar with. And I have a very clear image of, as a child, sitting at the bottom of of my parents’ wardrobe, hiding among the shoes and clothes, and the smell and the blackness and the little chinks of light, and I was really trying to illustrate that … I was trying to make that space solid. Closet, 1988
Rachel Whiteread Paul Hessels Droog Design
Detail from Untitled (Upstairs) 2001
Power tiles 1995
Tejo RemyYou Can’t Lay Down Your Memories
1991
Ben HighmoreFiguring the Everyday
To launch an investigation into the theoretical practices of those who attend to everyday life requires attention to everyday life itself.
David Shrigley Imagine the Green is Red, 1997
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)The Ready-made
I cast the urinal before them as a challenge and now they admire it because of its aesthetic beauty.
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)The Ready-made
At last that ‘wretched urinal’ existed in ‘real’ art materials … !
Sherrie Levine - Fountain 1991
Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991)
Why should the study of the banal itself be banal? … Why wouldn’t the concept of everydayness reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary?
Stage 2 Seminar Tomorrow:
Task:
Many writers, most notably Marcel Proust, have written about the ways in which time and memory are encoded in our perception of everyday things.
Come to the seminar with an example of work from a contemporary artist or designer, which explores the idea of memory and ‘the familiar’ using everyday objects.
Stage 3 Workshop Thursday:
Task:
Reflect on the 3 lecture themes and weekly readings.
Come to the workshop prepared to discuss your ideas for your essay. What sort of ‘question’ might you ask of The Everyday …