Opening text by Shazia Mirza
The project initiated from discussions about very slippery object-human relationship that remained central to three of us as attentive consumers of everyday objects and as makers, who constantly transported material between phases and categories of meanings, signs, use and symbols.
We started a preparative exchange to explore similar interests with our invited cyber neighbors via digitally shared images of objects which had been challenging or enticing them (the owners) to relocate either themselves or the very objects within their emotional landscapes.
Our curiosities were answered with 830 objects.An agglomeration substantial enough to open up multiple entry points into man-object relationship, especially because quite a few objects came from unexpected functional realms.
It may sound hard to digest but as humans we are totally dependent on to material objects for constructing our Self, understanding the world, marking and dividing time, making sense of our existence, constructing languages and sensibilities, learning and honing skills, and building up imagination and goals. Things and objects are the medium through which knowledge is constructed and transported. Common objects have held central role in creating scholarship in every academic field including the disciplines that deal exclusively in thought.
The philosophical explanations of Thing, Object or Dingus are crucial in understanding the topic’s true significance but here I wish to include every maker or maker-in-training into an accessible conversation about observing the ways in which everyday objects “shape” people vs. how people shape objects, or the power of objects vs. the power of subject.
In the age of fourth industrial revolution, every maker from creative and industrial fields must pay a new attention to the materiality of man-made objects.She must ask herself “Why do I make what I make?“ before she proceeds to add to the already swelling markets and landfills. The unnamed “stuff” around us is simply misplaced energy.
The viewer can approach contents of The Keyboard 1/5 in multiple ways. While the project primarily intends to evince various natures of the human-object relationship and patterns of consumption, it also offers itself to be seen as object-based portraits of participant,or as study of comparable responses. It brings forward unusual design approaches,few models of material economy, and also interestingly poses as a testing ground of fresh hypotheses against presented objects.
The collection offers points to ponder through fresh comparisons and connections, such as between objects 2,3 and 4.
I have never seen object 2 in real, but I understand it to be a highly functional object .
All three are designed to make sharp and precise cuts,but the nature of function differ in complexity. Object 2 is not functionally free in the real world. Its sophisticated function includes meeting emotional, religious, psychological and cultural objectives on top of slashing skin. The cut it creates in living flesh transports and embeds a memory, an idea and a belief into the world of material. Whereas objects 3 and 4 are stripped down to their “apparatus” status, with no hidden expectations but to make the most precise cut possible.
Object 5 is most disconcerting for me for many reasons.
At first glace I found it to be a beautiful and nicely proportionate object fitting my internal meter of delicate balance perfectly. If I were to sketch a vessel or any similar form, my imagined thing would have exactly the same proportions and angles. I instantly found a happy connection with it without knowing that actually aesthetics played no role in deciding its form.
Secondly, because after reading the text supporting the image, I came to know that even Unk Kraus himself was not sure about the real purpose of this object. He struggled to find what it was used for, and he finally discovered that it is called a “sowbell”.
Thirdly, because Google and dictionary offer no help at explaining what a “sowbell” is.
And finally, even after Unk Kraus has explained what the object is used for, I can’t understand or imagine its function in pig slaughter, because I have limited knowledge of the object pig or its elements that need to be handled during slaughter. This object is a prime example of how some objects can remain “things” for some, while closed and established objects for others.
Such things remain isolated culturally or geographically if they don’t enter the commodity circle. Power of purchase allows people like myself to own even more distant objects like Ambergris in perfumes I buy.
Tracking complete paths of complexly designed and consumed products is another research-worthy topic that promises to reveal our own position against the dynamics and politics of commodity market.
“Design” as a field of solution facilitates people exclusively through commodity production, but over-production and brand politics has shifted almost all powers from user to the market forces,and in worse cases,to the product itself. In many cases, commodities function dangerously free of any human control.They not only trounce our power to decide, they also have completely replaced landscape of objects that helped us imagine our existence in our growing up years. The objects are not subservient to us any more. Reactionary lifestyles such as minimalistic living are created to curb this very threat and to sensitize consumers to benefit from the real value of commodities. Objects 6, 7,8,9 and 10 provide great topics of design research in such contexts.
Curiosity no 12 (If you were to start a personal museum or collection, what would it contain?) was answered by highest number of participants.
People wanted to start collections of objects with emotional value such as handmade dragons, handwritten notes, of natural objects such as, plants, pebbles, snail shells, of objects of cultural significance such as handcrafted cups, Detroit Chinatown signs, tapestry made by trans women, chess boards, books, shoes; but also of mass-produced industrial objects such as colorful felt-tip pens, desktop computers, surgical tools, wall chargers, cable adapters, old thrift-store gadgets and flawed commercial sweets.
So many participants wanting to start collections based on a commodity as opposed to singularities is something to think deep about. Industrial objects are already exhibited for non-specialist viewers in different museums, but it would be interesting to see a collection of electronic age products carrying cultural, emotional or religious meanings. Will these products enter the collection as disused things, or would these exist simultaneously on two levels of existence, “in-use” and “collected”?
In case of museum of pebbles, there is a curiosity.
Usually when an object reaches end of its useful age, if it is valuable we shift it to the next phase of “collection” so the valuable aspect of it does not perish and remains available for another kind of consumption. We definitely wont be “done with” the pebbles, so how would an uncollected pebble differ from a collected one? Are collections not about “attention” only? If so, how may glaciers be collected instead of pebbles?
Does the physicality of objects restrict our imagination? And if making virtual objects expand our imagination fast, what is the future of manual skill?
April 16th,2019
The project initiated from discussions about very slippery object-human relationship that remained central to three of us as attentive consumers of everyday objects and as makers, who constantly transported material between phases and categories of meanings, signs, use and symbols.
We started a preparative exchange to explore similar interests with our invited cyber neighbors via digitally shared images of objects which had been challenging or enticing them (the owners) to relocate either themselves or the very objects within their emotional landscapes.
Our curiosities were answered with 830 objects.An agglomeration substantial enough to open up multiple entry points into man-object relationship, especially because quite a few objects came from unexpected functional realms.
It may sound hard to digest but as humans we are totally dependent on to material objects for constructing our Self, understanding the world, marking and dividing time, making sense of our existence, constructing languages and sensibilities, learning and honing skills, and building up imagination and goals. Things and objects are the medium through which knowledge is constructed and transported. Common objects have held central role in creating scholarship in every academic field including the disciplines that deal exclusively in thought.
The philosophical explanations of Thing, Object or Dingus are crucial in understanding the topic’s true significance but here I wish to include every maker or maker-in-training into an accessible conversation about observing the ways in which everyday objects “shape” people vs. how people shape objects, or the power of objects vs. the power of subject.
In the age of fourth industrial revolution, every maker from creative and industrial fields must pay a new attention to the materiality of man-made objects.She must ask herself “Why do I make what I make?“ before she proceeds to add to the already swelling markets and landfills. The unnamed “stuff” around us is simply misplaced energy.
The viewer can approach contents of The Keyboard 1/5 in multiple ways. While the project primarily intends to evince various natures of the human-object relationship and patterns of consumption, it also offers itself to be seen as object-based portraits of participant,or as study of comparable responses. It brings forward unusual design approaches,few models of material economy, and also interestingly poses as a testing ground of fresh hypotheses against presented objects.
The collection offers points to ponder through fresh comparisons and connections, such as between objects 2,3 and 4.
I have never seen object 2 in real, but I understand it to be a highly functional object .
All three are designed to make sharp and precise cuts,but the nature of function differ in complexity. Object 2 is not functionally free in the real world. Its sophisticated function includes meeting emotional, religious, psychological and cultural objectives on top of slashing skin. The cut it creates in living flesh transports and embeds a memory, an idea and a belief into the world of material. Whereas objects 3 and 4 are stripped down to their “apparatus” status, with no hidden expectations but to make the most precise cut possible.
 |
| Sabeen Jamil Object 2 |
 |
| Faisal Khan Object 3 |
 |
| Anonymous Object 4 |
Object 5 is most disconcerting for me for many reasons.
 |
| Unk Kraus Object 5 |
At first glace I found it to be a beautiful and nicely proportionate object fitting my internal meter of delicate balance perfectly. If I were to sketch a vessel or any similar form, my imagined thing would have exactly the same proportions and angles. I instantly found a happy connection with it without knowing that actually aesthetics played no role in deciding its form.
Secondly, because after reading the text supporting the image, I came to know that even Unk Kraus himself was not sure about the real purpose of this object. He struggled to find what it was used for, and he finally discovered that it is called a “sowbell”.
Thirdly, because Google and dictionary offer no help at explaining what a “sowbell” is.
And finally, even after Unk Kraus has explained what the object is used for, I can’t understand or imagine its function in pig slaughter, because I have limited knowledge of the object pig or its elements that need to be handled during slaughter. This object is a prime example of how some objects can remain “things” for some, while closed and established objects for others.
Such things remain isolated culturally or geographically if they don’t enter the commodity circle. Power of purchase allows people like myself to own even more distant objects like Ambergris in perfumes I buy.
Tracking complete paths of complexly designed and consumed products is another research-worthy topic that promises to reveal our own position against the dynamics and politics of commodity market.
“Design” as a field of solution facilitates people exclusively through commodity production, but over-production and brand politics has shifted almost all powers from user to the market forces,and in worse cases,to the product itself. In many cases, commodities function dangerously free of any human control.They not only trounce our power to decide, they also have completely replaced landscape of objects that helped us imagine our existence in our growing up years. The objects are not subservient to us any more. Reactionary lifestyles such as minimalistic living are created to curb this very threat and to sensitize consumers to benefit from the real value of commodities. Objects 6, 7,8,9 and 10 provide great topics of design research in such contexts.
 |
| Anonymous Object 6 |
 |
| Unk Kraus Object 7 |
 |
| Faisal Khan Object 8 |
 |
| Hae Won Sohn Object 9 |
 |
| Unk Kraus Object 10 |
Curiosity no 12 (If you were to start a personal museum or collection, what would it contain?) was answered by highest number of participants.
People wanted to start collections of objects with emotional value such as handmade dragons, handwritten notes, of natural objects such as, plants, pebbles, snail shells, of objects of cultural significance such as handcrafted cups, Detroit Chinatown signs, tapestry made by trans women, chess boards, books, shoes; but also of mass-produced industrial objects such as colorful felt-tip pens, desktop computers, surgical tools, wall chargers, cable adapters, old thrift-store gadgets and flawed commercial sweets.
So many participants wanting to start collections based on a commodity as opposed to singularities is something to think deep about. Industrial objects are already exhibited for non-specialist viewers in different museums, but it would be interesting to see a collection of electronic age products carrying cultural, emotional or religious meanings. Will these products enter the collection as disused things, or would these exist simultaneously on two levels of existence, “in-use” and “collected”?
In case of museum of pebbles, there is a curiosity.
Usually when an object reaches end of its useful age, if it is valuable we shift it to the next phase of “collection” so the valuable aspect of it does not perish and remains available for another kind of consumption. We definitely wont be “done with” the pebbles, so how would an uncollected pebble differ from a collected one? Are collections not about “attention” only? If so, how may glaciers be collected instead of pebbles?
Does the physicality of objects restrict our imagination? And if making virtual objects expand our imagination fast, what is the future of manual skill?
