Everyday things
In the craft objects we use every day there exists a deep-rooted memory
born of a necessity to satisfy the absolute physiological requirements of
the human race. The need for sustenance, warmth and shelter underlie
the most basic functions of craft objects and ‘while this purpose and these
needs may be basic their implications are not’ (Risatti, 2007, p. 55). The
ceramic vessel retains this fundamental meaning, an enduring convention
of our human evolutionary moment, a memory that transcends ethnic,
cultural and national, economic and class boundaries (Risatti, 2007, p.
59).
As Premo Levi describes (1989, p. 33): 'man is a builder of receptacles; a
species that does not build any is not human by definition... to fabricate a
receptacle is due to two qualities which for good or evil are exquisitely
human. The first is the ability to think about tomorrow... the second... is
the capacity to foresee the behaviour of materials: if we keep to the
subject of receptacles, we know how to foresee what container and
content ‘will do’.
The uncomplicated simplicity of pottery as a functional craft is contrasted
with the more philosophical ideas of abstraction, symbolism, narrative.
Pottery is 'the primal interweaving of matter, human action and symbol
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that each pot represents' (Houston, 1991, p. 33). Even the earliest
vessels can still move us through their expressive form. The advent of the
potter’s wheel added rhythm and movement to the concept of the hollow
form providing all the essentials of this most abstract art (Houston 1991,
pp. 9 and 36). The words ordinary and useful now support a special role
for the familiar forms of everyday pottery as the shape of a domesticated
presence; the protecting features of the container connect with the
concept of home (Houston, 1991, p. 9).
Modern society has become estranged from the once holistic conception
of daily life which been neglected and trivialised, eroded by the effects of
modernisation, the dehumanising effects of technology, repetitiveness of
work, and empty consumerism (Blauvelt, 2003, p. 18 and (Greenhalgh,
2005, p. 138). As a result, the social production processes of crafts has
largely been lost and along with it many aspects of social consciousness
and practice (Aratov, 1997, pp. 120-121). Industrialisation and mass
production made it irrelevant for the craft movement to hold on to
function as the core of its work (Dormer, 1994, p. 38) and the origins of
everyday utilitarian ceramics have become hidden from the consciousness
of modern consumer society.
In a romantic reaction against industrial capitalism the craft potter came
into existence, and in a bid to preserve historic values and traditional
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skills (Frayling, 2011, pp. 65-66) the crafts have become ‘heavily
encumbered with worthy and meaningful traditions’ (Houston, 1991, pp.
20-21). And so to an extent craft pottery remains outside its creative
genesis, screened by tradition, taboos and truth to materials.
The realm of the everyday is elusive, encompassing those activities,
practices, spaces and things that exist beyond the reach of society’s
official dictates and actions. By examining our everyday world anew we
afford an opportunity to question what we take for granted in our
everyday material world, challenge our presumptions about what is
possible, reconsider our relationship to familiar things.
In his appraisal of the practices of everyday life, the "arts of doing", De
Certeau explores the dynamics of personal choice in terms of mass
production and consumption through the theoretical framework of
strategies and tactics (de Certeau, 1984). He describes the repressive
techniques used by organisational power structures in modern society as
‘strategies’. Superficially, strategies exhibit indicators of the qualities of
truth, permanence, and ubiquity, deployed against subordinates to elicit
control. Despite such repressive aspects of modern society, there remains
an element of creative resistance, ‘tactics’ enacted by ordinary subjugated
individuals or "consumers". The “tactics” as defined by De Certeau are
ways to artfully “use, manipulate, and divert” the cultural products and
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spaces imposed by an external power. Tactics are simply ways of
constructing alternatives as Certeau puts it "victories of the 'weak' over
the 'strong'" (Certeau, 1984, p. 20). Certeau demonstrated this using the
example of Spanish colonizers forcing their culture upon indigenous
Indians; they did not reject or alter them but rather subverted them by
using them for ends and references that the Spanish could not relate to or
understand (Certeau, 1984, p. xiii). By comparison in consumer based
society; the ‘common people’ have a culture imposed upon them by the
‘elites’ but often this culture is subverted by using its products outside of
the original intensions of the producer. Thus for de Certeau, consumption
is not passive but contains active elements of user resistance nonconformist, adaptive tactics that become creative acts in their own
right. Creativity lies with the user and beyond the conventional role
assumed by the producer. We must analyse the manipulation of cultural
objects by ‘users’ other than its makers.
In our haste to acknowledge the novel, the significant, the extraordinary
we overlook the everyday, the basic, the familiar. Everyday objects form
a paradoxical existence in our lives, they are omnipresent, yet we
integrate these objects into our environment so successfully that they
recede into the background against which we go about our daily lives.
Georges Perec urges us to question the way we look at everydayness
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(1997, pp. 205-207). 'How should we take account of, question, describe
what happens every day and recurs every day: the banal, the quotidian,
the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the
background noise, the habitual?' What is commonplace has become so
familiar that we fail to even see it let alone question it, ‘this is no longer
even conditioning, it's anaesthesia’ (Perec, 1997, p. 206).
Perec described a re-imagination of everyday life, obliging us to question
the customary commonplace stuff of everyday life, objects around us,
places we inhabit, habits we form, routines we perform (Perec, 1997, pp.
206-207): 'what's needed perhaps is finally to found our own
anthropology, one that will speak about us, will look in ourselves for what
for so long we've been pillaging from others. Not the exotic anymore, but
the endotic.' “what we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our
table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our
rhythms. To question that which seems to have ceased forever to
astonish us. We live, true, we breathe, true, we walk, we open doors, we
go down staircases, we sit at a table in order to eat, we lie down on a bed
in order to sleep. How? Where? When? Why?”
In the decades following the Second World War the adoption of a systems
based approach provided a means of appraisal and documentation of the
world. This allowed a fresh level of engagement while offering theorists a
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mechanism to manage and control organisations (Dezeuze, 2005, p33/34
and Boase, 2005, p67). By definition, a set of relationships between
objects was considered a 'system' (Skrebowski, L., 2012). The use of
simplified geometric forms, generative or repetitive actions and
mathematical sequences were used to explore the role and relationship of
systems and processes, their exposure, infiltration and insurrection, and
this came to the fore in the evolution of art until the 1970’s (Dezeuze,
2005, p33/34, Perreau and Penwarden, 2005, p. 78, Boase, 2005, p. 67).
From this principle came the concept of 'open systems'. Open systems are
characteristically self-determining, lacking in order and predictability,
enabling matter or energy to shift freely between the system and its
environment (Spaid, 2005 pp. 54-55). Works that can be described as
open systems are not displayed on the wall of a gallery or placed carefully
on a plinth. Instead they are designed to be interactive and receptive to
audience participation. The beholder becomes a part of the work and
involved in the fabrication of its meaning (Perreau and Penwarden, 2005,
p. 78, Boase, 2005, p. 67). Thus there is a conscious relinquishing of
control by the maker, they become a ‘proposer’ of the piece instead of the
producer of a finished work (Tate open systems exhibition, room 6:
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/opensystems/open-systems-room-6). Unpredictable, chance events influence
the work resulting in multiple possible outcomes, including the risk of
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damage and deterioration. (Spaid, 2005, pp. 54-55). Thus the works are
designed such that the intensions of the maker can be subverted by the
user. They acknowledge that the everyday is a participatory realm where
design is incomplete; knowing that people will eventually inhabit and
adapt what is given challenging the preconceptions of the maker. The
Permanent Creation Toolbox of Robert Fillou, 1969 embodies the belief in
audience participation, the human body is reintroduced within the realm
of Conceptual Art (Dezeuze, 2005, pp. 33/34).
Robert Filliou, 1969. Permanent Creation Tool-box. Available at
http://www.garagecosmos.be/exhibition.php?id=4&lang=en
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An example of open system thinking was DO, part the Dutch cooperative
Droog Design, described as ‘an ever-changing brand that depends on
what you do’. Mass production with an active role reserved for the
consumer, an open nature that is out to mess with the everyday, obliging
the user to confront the monotony of daily life by demanding interaction
and conceptual creativity (Blauvelt, 2003, pp. 64-65). The ‘DO break’, for
example, is a glass vase sheathed within transparent rubber. After you
have bought it you smash it. The shards held in place by the rubber to
give an exclusive vase. The ‘DO sit’ is an aluminium cube that can be
beaten with a mallet, transforming it into a personalised seat. By evading
fixed form, such works open a dynamic dialogue with the user, wise to
the tactical habits of everyday.
From a consumer perspective Baudrillard (1996, 92) proposes that the
everyday object has two central functions, to be used or to be possessed.
For the majority of consumers today, the accepted objects of their
everyday will predominantly be mass produced items for use, yet,
however purposeful these everyday objects may be, their mass
production gives them a particularly unremarkable, generic status.
Industry defines the form and function of the object and a long history of
manufacturing has caused the everyday including domestic utilitarian
ware to be “smoothed into near-featureless uniformity by relentless
feeding to a global mass market” (Brown, 2007, p. 54) and these
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“domesticated aesthetics” have been imprinted on our consciousness and
still affects our orientation and judgement regarding what we like and
admire (Cecula, 2008, p. 86).
Droog. 2000. Do Break vase. Porcelain & rubber, height 34 cm. Image available at
http://www.tjep.com/studio/works/products/do-break
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A closer look at the processes whereby people relate to everyday objects
reveals that often no conscious interpretation is needed as visible cues to
their operation are usually present (Norman, 1990, p. 2). In general, we
know what to do with an object just by looking at it. Affordances provide
clues to function (Norman, 1990 pp.9-10), e.g. handles afford holding and
lifting. Based on our experiences, conceptual mental models of novel
objects are used to form explanations and simulate their operation, a
complete knowledge is seldom required (Norman, 1990 p. 55). We
understand the physical properties of ceramic objects, their surfaces are
typically neat and reflexive, while form provides a handle or edge for
gripping, a shape around which our hand fits with comfort (Ionascu and
Scott, 2007 , p.86).
Objects that are difficult to use provide no clues or false clues. False clues
for example are seen in Luke Bishop’s Rongo Rongo series which aims to
intentionally disturb the recognised syntax of function by disrupting the
affordances of the object and Jaques Carelman's deliberately unworkable
Coffeepot for Masochists. Frustration arises when the mental model of
operation does not correspond to reality with loss of tacit understanding
of the object.
Objects that provide no clues may be without a clearly defined function.
In the absence of information imagination can run free as long as the
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mental models account for the facts as they perceive them (Norman,
1990, pp. 38-39) allowing us to reconsider our relationship with them.
User participation, choice and potential rejection are vital elements of
such objects and the possibility of new functions and rituals of use
becomes an implicit quality, allowing purpose to be subject to a particular
situation. The way objects are used is developed by and dependent on the
operations and manipulations of their possessors, the maker simply
provides a 'how and why of creation' deciding the features of their
creations (Ionascu and scott, 2007, pp. 86-87.
Luke Bishop. 2013. Rongorongo; Forgotten Function series; porcelain with latex
additions; http://www.lukebishop.com/wordpress/?page_id=377
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Jaques Carelman. 1969. Coffeepot for Masochists, originally in Catalogue d’Objets
Introuvables (the Catalogue of Impossible Objects). Available from
http://impossibleobjects.com/coffeepot-for-masochists.html
In economies of the past the worth of goods was understood in terms
utility value. In modern society, products are props in the staging of
memorable moments of consumption, such an ‘Experience economy’ is
what Jean Baudrillard refers to as sign value in which nothing represents
itself literally. Things are barometers of wellness, competitiveness,
wealth, prestige (Blauvelt, 2003, p. 16). The use of inexpensive everyday
materials and things in the making of an object raises questions about the
commercial value of the object whilst substance is added to the object, a
more active connection with forms by creating a relationship between
ourselves and our environment, a re-signification of ordinary everyday
things that compels us practically and psychologically to reckon with
them.
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References
Books
Blauvelt, A., 2003. Strangely Familiar: design and everyday life. Walker
Art Center.
Baudrillard, J. 1996. The system of objects. Translated by J. Benedict,
London: Verso.
De Certeau, M., 1984. The practice of everyday life. Translated by S.
Rendall, University of California Press.
Dormer, P., 1994.The art of the maker. Thames & Hudson.
Houston, J., 1991. The abstract vessel: forms of expression & decoration
by nine artist-potters: Gordon Baldwin, Alison Britton, Ken Eastman,
Philip Eglin, Elizabeth Fritsch, Carol McNicoll, Jacqui Poncelet, Angus
Suttie, Betty Woodman: ceramics in studio. Bellew (with) Oriel/Welsh
Arts Council.
Houston, J., 1990. Richard Slee: ceramics in studio. Bellow.
Risatti, H. A., 2007 1943.A theory of craft : function and aesthetic
expression. University of North Carolina Press.
Greenhalgh, P., 2005. The modern ideal: the rise and collapse of idealism
in the visual arts from the enlightenment to postmodernism. V&A
Publications.
Frayling, C., 2011.On craftsmanship, Oberon.
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Norman, D. A., 1990, The design of everyday things. Doubleday.
Perec, G., (1997) Species of spaces and other pieces, translated by John
Sturrock, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Journal Articles
Aratov, B and Kiaer, C.,1997, Everyday life and the culture of
thing (toward the formulation of the question), October, 81, pp.
119-28.
Brown, L., 2012. Industry meets art. Ceramic Review, 255,
p50-55.
Cecula, M., 2008. Mass Production and Originality. Studio Potter 36 (2), pp
85-87.
Ionascu A. and Scott D. Common Objects Common Gestures. Ceramics:
Art and Perception, 2007, Vol. 68, pp 86-90.
Spaid, S 2005, '“Open Systems”: Tate Modern, London UK', Artus, 11, pp.
54-55.
Dezeuze, A 2005, 'Open Systems: Rethinking Art c1970: Tate Modern,
London', Art Monthly, 288, pp. 33-34.
Boase, G 2005, 'Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970: Tate Modern,
London', Flash Art International, 38, p. 67
Perreau, Y, & Penwarden, C 2005, 'Open Systems: Rethinking Art
c.1970', Art-Press, 317, p. 78
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Web
Skrebowski, L., 2012. All systems go: recovering Jack Burnham's
'Systems Aesthetics' [online] Tate papers, acessed 31.03.2014. available
from: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/allsystems-go-recovering-jack-burnhams-systems-aesthetics
Open systems, room 6. Accessed 03.03.2014. available from:
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/opensystems/open-systems-room-6
Images
Luke Bishop. 2013. Rongorongo; Forgotten Function series; porcelain with
latex additions. Accessed: 29.06.2014. Available from:
http://www.lukebishop.com/wordpress/?page_id=377
Jaques Carleman. Coffeepot for masochists. Accessed: 29.06.2014.
Available from: http://impossibleobjects.com/coffeepot-formasochists.html
Robert Filliou, 1969. Permanent Creation Tool-box. Accessed:
09.06.2014. Available from:
http://www.garagecosmos.be/exhibition.php?id=4&lang=en
Droog. 2000. Do Break Vase. Accessed: 09.06.2014. Available from:
http://www.tjep.com/studio/works/products/do-break
Word count: 2585 including references, 2206 excluding references
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