What I am expected to do: Term 1:
- Project Proposal, continuously re-worked and refined as practice and context develops and deepens.
- 20-30 hours per week, practical or contextual
What I have done so far:
- Written and re-written project brief several times (still not clear)
- Made 50 mini tactiforms
- Briefly explored the tactile qualities of amorphous hand-held ceramic forms
- Gotten minimal feedback from public
- Gotten some feedback from peers
- Written a lot of notes – not followed through
- Created a blog
What I haven’t done so far:
- A clear proposal
- A clear idea of what I want to do and why
- Any formal reading, or recording of.
- Any formal feedback of practical work, or recording of.
- Not enough connection with context
- Not enough practical work
- Developed existing practical skills, beyond what I already knew how to make
- Learnt new practical skills
What I need to do (this term):
- Formalise a schedule of working – week by week
- Formalise a blogging schedule
- Identify term, course and overall aims
- Make, Read, Share something every day.
Aims:
What I want to do (this term):
- Have a clear idea of what to make
- Have a clear idea about why I want to make it
- Identify and understand a selection of appropriate contexts
- Learn new practical skills and improve existing skills
- Show a considered, high-quality selection of developmental work at WIP
How I will achieve these targets:
- Be inspired by going on 2 contextual visits each week; having a clear idea about what I want to see, why and how I am going to record the experience.
- New Design Museum
- Martins WIP Show
- British Museum – ancient, primitive figures, hand held
- Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Explorations of consciousness through objects
Current Project:
Explorations of the subconscious mind through ceramic objects
- 3+ drinking vessels
- They must be drinking/eating vessels, as the act of consumption is a key primal human function
- They must physically connect with a user’s mouth in order to experience ‘the irrational’ tactile sensation
- I believe the irrational response to be a breaking down of the barriers between raw human primal functions, suppressed by the modern/culturally-programmed mind. When people use the vessel they feel an unexpected or surprising
- The action of putting something to the mouth references the close psychological connection between food and sex (both key primal human functions), as referenced by Freud, etc.
My aims:
- Each vessel will physically stimulate the user’s lips and hands (grip) with unexpected haptics (in contrast to norms of function/form/design).
- This should draw significance with the action taking place – consuming, feeding and inserting.
My objectives:
- To stimulate an unexpected, surprising or ‘unexplainable’ response, caused by a tactile sensation of using serve wear.
- To reconnect a user with basic human functions, though bestowing ‘irrational’ thinking.
- Create an interesting range of serve ware that feels (and looks) interesting and unusual, as a haptic experience.
- To promote discussion of suppressed human behaviours; to draw attention to the conflict of behaving as to societal expectations, versus basic human instincts.
Cup 1: ‘Voluptuousness’
- Visual language (VL) of the basic form: chubby, curvy, engorged, soft, fleshy… this references ‘the body’ as a fertile, nurturing, nourishing and grope-able object.
- VL of additional features: dimpled rim… this references the softness and grope-able texture of flesh; something that can be pressed and impressed. This is an unusual texture for the lips; particularly in contrast to typical smooth drinking vessels (cups, glasses, etc.). Belly button draws additional attention to the object being a representation of flesh – a torso – rather than a representation of a complete, or gender-specific body.
- Context: flesh being a key part of the conditions of feeding and sex; we eat flesh and we crave flesh carnally.
Cafe del Martin 