'The Secret Life of Objects'- Ikon Gallery
'Sexualise the toaster. Simply line...the orifices of the toaster with velvet, preferably red...The toaster is now useless (so already like a work of art)...the red reminds one of heat, but is also fleshy...all fairly disturbing.'
I just love this quotation and the idea that the object is whatever you make it, its functional connotations are so readily interchangeable with the possessors manipulation or treatment of the object itself. My tea cup (the focus of my experimentation) has become more than even I originally understood it to be. Chosen as an object for materialistic aesthetic appeal as well as function, sentimentality and addiction. I initially thought that my relationship as the owner was completely routed in an emotional dependency upon the human interaction associated with a cup of tea. However after exploring this concept through film, and now allowing the above quotation to filter through my ideas...Why is my cup so much larger than the average tea cup? I know why. The cup was a gift from a friend who knows that I'm never satisfied unless the flow of tea is constant. I imagine that she chose the object influenced by her awareness of my greed, and her knowledge that a cup which allows you to dunk a whole digestive biscuit is simply superior in my eyes. As a consumer was she aware of this? Why is it predominantly red? Why is it striped and vibrantly colourful?
After making my stop frame film sequence of the tea leaves spelling out words as they spiraled up the cup, the tea leaves themselves had altered the function of the cup. Until I remove them, the cup is no longer a cup, it is currently a sculpture or a useless piece of art offering only visual communication. However, one dip in the washing up bowl and the art is gone, the object is back and its original visual language restored. I shan't be made obsolete by a manufactured tea cup! Watch this space and i shall take that objects powerful language and make it as useless as my art.
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