Just found these arched fenders, the object sits at the front of the boat - nearly a pillow or neck support. The strong link to the embodied and preosethic is really exciting - not in its original state but the ambiguity that might be created through transforming or replicating this object trough alternative making process and application. when I was at tate last week kept thinking about people needing to lean, but I am aware how easy it would be to support looking rather than enable learning through the objects I make. I am interested in this difference and the absorbtion/ digestion of meaning/knowledge and looking. I need to read more about adsorption in terms of prosthesis.
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Participants as Agents for Objects with Agency. We call them ears on my head but they are not. We say shell on my back but it is not. Shoe Lasts - Ears Chair Seat – Shell The ears are the Hare, listening upright and alert. However we recognize a shoe or feet when we look at the object and this alludes to movement –moving forward. There is a sense of expediency. The chair seat also has elastic straps that allow you to put on the object like a rucksack. It has a weight, feels like baggage literally and metaphorically. There is a protectiveness that the ‘shell’ provides as if it would become a shield if it was worn at the front of the body. It has a sense of stillness. Wearing both objects at the same time allows something to take place as the body becomes part of the object narrative, connecting the two disparate elements. Interestingly Mileaf (2010) talks of how the use of objects with an uncanny or surrealist approach uses ‘‘juxtaposition as a strategy to incite corporeal disturbance’. This disturbance is a core attribute to previous sorhed objects where the cross over and joining of objects generates a new unknown object. These new things agitate and provoke asking for new readings, interpretations and meanings. The shoe lasts and chair back have a different cross over point. The juxtaposition takes place through their placement on the body. The body is the connection point, it is the join. Therefore, the differing roles or identities of the objects congregate on the body itself. They are not encountered through the hand they understood through the body. ‘The Thing, the object, can be considered prosthesis of the body – provided that it is remembered that the body is equally a prosthesis of the thing.’ (Massumi 2002, 95). The wearing of these two objects when referencing the tortoise and the hare change the body. The objects as metaphors for learning, listening, moving, occupy the body. The space in between is activated. The yielding and openness required to engage with learning can often generate a vulnerability as one is destabilized and truths shift uncomfortably and new knowledge gathers. The identity of the last and chair has changed from their original state to a potential new readings, their original are destabilized too. object and learner yielding. This particular shell whilst protecting the back, leaves the chest and the stomach vulnerable, overly soft in comparison to the hard-wooden objects. The objects make the participant alert, attentive, protected and still, upright and listening whilst vulnerable and open. A transformation occurs that enables a reordering and renaming of the material objects for a new narrative or function. The body plays its part. Tortoise and the Hare. Does slow and steady win the race and do we need to differentiate between the goals and the intentions and ability of both creatures to discover a moral or message within the fable? Using this fable to develop an analogy for learning I was struck by whether slow and steady was reflective of the motivated push needed for transformative learning to take place. Whilst this fable does not sight itself as a moral for learning practices I was interested in the story of two identities figuring out success felt appropriate. Certainly, within a learning environment steadiness may equal concentration or having attention on a goal and the carelessness of the hare may in turn equal a haphazard and egotistical approach to success. What is interesting is the unpicking of the tale as an illustration of how the role we take positions us. How do we consider our openness and ability to yield to an effective learning process? After discovering a small aside about the story, I became interested in how my recent work mirrored the story. A fable becoming an adopted metaphor? Wearing the ears and chair seat at the SCVA felt very silent in comparison to the animation of the presentation. I was still spectacle and became almost one of the objects in the gallery as I was looked at, laughed at and watched. The ears made me feel alert, listening hard, back straight and ready, poised. accessed February 5th 2017 Davenport, J. online url https://brightestbulb.net/entertainment/tortoise_and_hare/ How the clay shifted during my research seminar presentation When Alex Woodall (head of learning) asked to wear them she moved differently in the space again her posture changed, standing upright as she turned and viewed the space in an unfamiliar way. It seemed like she was looking with her ears.
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Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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