-SHIP.

A BROKEN THING.

objects.

 

The French poet and writer Francis Ponge, describes commonplace objects to illustrate complex human emotion and behavior. "Things" can contain the memory of how we used them while forcing the viewer to make a new interaction with the object. By making loaded objects, containing narratives and history their sense of use becomes shifted and it is this functional deception that makes them strange.

 

-SHIP. is a publication which contains the work of 27 artist and writers on the theme of authorship today. Inspired by the debate of "the designer as author" as well as new-technology phenomenon of collective authorship, this black and white 'zine' intends to find a consensus on the topic through a multiplicity of voices. The contributors range from artists to writers, designers and filmmakers. Each one was asked to submit a written and a visual response on the theme. The design of the A5 publication was modeled on the structure of wikipedia, the emblematic web-database of collectivity today.

 

Like wikipedia, the book navigates non-linearly through 'links' which in this instance are indicators to turn to another page for the continuation of a definition, and 'tags' which are tactile and colorful tabs sticking out of the book. The artwork is inserted in color card or 'pop-up' images throughout the book. One of Wikipedia's crucial components is the 'reliable source', which in this case is the contributors. Each one is introduced with a profile page containing the 'profile-picture' they have chosen to put online and finally the book is organized by chronological order in which the responses were received.

 

This book has been described to me as 'an improbable' object. Awkward to handle and to navigate, it looks like it belongs to someone else, someone who has read through it already and marked it up.... In order to follow the system of wikipedia the book includes tactile versions of hyperlinks, tags, author profiles and "pop-up" images. In this way it navigates in a non-linear way mimicking the web interface.

 

A BROKEN THING. was made in collaboration with Mary Banas. It is a functioning chandelier made of the parts of broken objects. It was made site-specifically for an exhibition in a small brooklyn gallery in November of 2008. What was interesting in making this object, was turning non-functioning (broken) things into a new functional piece. The stories of how they broke were collected as well and printed in black ink on a black page so that they must be held up to the light in order to be revealed. The object itself becomes a hybrid narrative, constructed of so many different stories and lives.