Strangely Familiar
Lecture 3:
Art, Design and Evocation
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 Bott
Personal Museums
One of Each on Shelves
2000
Sophie Calle
Personal Museums
La Visit Guidee
(the bucket 1994)
Olivier Peyricot
Personal Museums
Object Holder Curtain
1995
Material Memories
The 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 Memory
Anya 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,
Broken English August ‘91, 1997
to still time, to create
memory
Clothing as Objects of Memory
Juliet 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 Memory
Christian 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 Memory
Martin Margiela
Museum Boijmans van
Beuningen Rotterdam, 1997
Clothing as Objects of Memory
Tejo Remy
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.
Rag Chair, 1991
Collection Droog Design
Gijs Bakker
Strangely Familiar
Wallpaper Peepshow
1992
Jurgen Bey
Strangely 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-)
Closet, 1988
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.
Rachel Whiteread
Paul Hessels Droog Design
Detail from Untitled
(Upstairs) 2001
Power tiles 1995
Tejo Remy
You Can’t Lay Down Your Memories
1991
Ben Highmore
Figuring 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
The Ready-made
(1887-1968)
I cast the urinal before
them as a challenge
and now they admire it
because of its aesthetic
beauty.
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
The Ready-made
(1887-1968)
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 …