An Object of Uncertain Nature – Competition – taught by Michael Benedikt

This 6”x6”x3 ¾” 40 lb. block of steel pirouettes serenely across its hickory floored home. The delicacy of its seeming weightless magic is only matched by the unyielding work shown in its welds. Impossible to lift, yet too enticing not to hold, this object of uncertain nature confronts and reaffirms our presumptions of its own desires. It capitalizes on our lust for understanding and revels in its maddening uselessness.

 

---

 

 

---

This project was completed in a two week time frame for an ongoing investigation into Object Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism led by Michael Benedikt. The competition brief had three rules, all of which were meant to be liberally bent and broken;

Parameter 1  …that need nothing else and no one else; that are oblivious to where they are or what is made of them or how they were made, or what is done with (or to) them…OR that depend for their sense, and perhaps very existence, on exactly where they are, the company they keep, what is said about them, how they were made, and what is done with (or to) them;

Parameter 2  …that have secrets, capacities, tendencies, or desires; that are “tips of icebergs;” that “listen to different drummers;” that receive or send feeds to other places, people, objects, dimensions…AND/OR that have evident, unique, and remarkable qualities all their own…OR that have no qualities at all and ask who you are;

Parameter 3  …that point to or exemplify peculiarly architectural components, elements, phenomena, and processes without themselves being fragments or models (i.e. abstract miniatures) of them.