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“Nothing matters very much and very few things matter at all”
Arthur James Balfour
Marina Abramović: An art made of trust, vulnerability and connection
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As a pair we were inspired by Marina Abramovic's performance piece which allowed the audience to take control of the artist with the objects placed on the table. Utilising physical interactions and objects became our focus. With the quotation we had selected concepts of materialism and different valuables came into our minds. Thus in order to represent this we decided to consider using symbolic physical objects.
Symbolism of objects
Afterwards, we wanted to utilise symbolic objects which reflects diverse connotations. At first it was difficult for me to research artists who utilises three dimensional objects in their work. However, I came across Damien Hirst through book 'Art the whole story' and became inspired by his use of symbolic objects and images such as the 'chemist' where a variety of pills and medicines placed in cabinets reflects our desires of immortality and remaining healthy which is impossible and ridiculous. As a result, we considered utilising 10 objects which were a condom, a packet of cigarettes, money, heels, bible/Quran, water, wine, books, social media and a 'free call'.
http://www.damienhirst.com/texts1/series/medicine-cabinets
After we conversed and received feedback from out tutors about our idea, we briefly experimented and tried it out with limited objects on a small piece white card. In addition, my partner had afterwards organised the objects in their desired order. From this brief experience we had learnt a lot. We had discovered that we needed multiple pieces of paper or card for our idea. In addition, during this experiment we were not able to see the desired sequence or order. Thus we decided to stick the sheets onto one another (sideways). Also, in order to allow the participant to give some space in between the objects we considered a grid structure.
Song Dong and knolling
During the development of our idea, we were drawn towards ordering the objects in a personal sequence. This led me to research artists related to ordering actual objects via knolling. Song Dong had interested me because of how each object was ordered such as his 'Eating the city' installation because of its neatness and precision. With this in my mind, we discussed ideas about allowing the participant to place the objects in what ever sequence they desire or through a specific strict order.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dong
https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/projects/song-dong/
For our idea we also wanted to add a corresponding photograph of the participant who had taken part in our interactive survey in order to achieve and portray the range of characters and identities in addition to show what they value.
Firstly, we experimented with the close up portrait. Although the identity of the figure is presented, we are not able to see the full persona or character. We then experimented with zooming out of the tight portrait with the addition of the background. The background suggests the characters personal background (slightly) however the blurry scenery seemed chaotic and disturbing because the image is too compact. Afterwards, we experimented with photographing the full figure. The way the full figure shot reflects the persona's social background by considering features such as the clothing was very advantageous for our idea.
Our initial location for this project was to be at Marble Arch. This was because there are a diverse range of people around this location and the surrounding is not hectic or busy such as like Kings Cross station. However due to the weather we were unable to set up and do our project at marble arch. Thus we had to relocate to a more drier area for our project as we were to be placing paper onto the floor. As a result, we had decided to do our project in Central saint martins in addition to around wait rose and we tried to avoid asking just students and focus on a range of participants.