And All That Stress...

After enduring debilitating migraines and a series of mini breakdowns, I was surprised I actually remained upright and able to function on Monday afternoon where I had to give a presentation contextualising my studio practice to the heads of area on my course and my fellow students.


Turns out the stress and emotional turmoil was worth it, I got through the presentation feeling quite chuffed with myself and have just received an e-mail from the Slade office informing me I passed the Critical Studies Assessment! 


Incredibly relieved.


So tomorrow I have a feedback/debriefing session with one of the heads of area which will be less nerve wracking now I know I can carry on into the second year of my degree!


At last my body and mind can relax, I never realised how much of an impact stress has on your well being!


So here's to me... Raise a glass! I will be celebrating tonight with a night out at Madame JoJo's, if you are around come and join me! 


:D

Display Methods and Their Consequences

The home; a living space capable of accumulating years of memories. It is a place which provides comfort and security for most of us. More interestingly, the home provides the resident with the opportunity to decorate and personalise it’s walls and surfaces. The museum, in comparison, is open to the public, displaying objects of historical and monetary value on a ‘look-but-don’t-touch’ basis. Then there are interiors such as the Freud Museum which bring the living space and museum atmosphere together, creating an interesting juxtaposition of display approaches. In this text I aim to compare the display methods of some of these places and discuss the attachments people form around the objects involved. 

The living space allows people to feel comfortable expressing their personalities. Natalie Rudd comments on Peter Blake’s interest in ‘Fandom’;

 “the notion of the family home as a personal gallery” makes “each of us assume a curatorial responsibility...we make aesthetic decisions as to what, why and how we exhibit objects within the home.” 

During life people build up an archive of memorabilia in their home such as photos and souvenirs of interests which hold their memories.  A build of time and events could be described as a ‘charge’, an energy which is projected through the objects the person owns and the way they have particularly chosen to display them. This sensation has been described by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ‘The Uncanny’. He questions whether situations can give rise to the uncanny and mentions the research of E. Jentsch who gives an example; 

“‘an apparently animate object really is alive and, conversely, whether a lifeless object might not perhaps be animate’”.

In ‘The Architectural Uncanny’, Anthony Vidler describes the interior structure to be; 

 “[A] representation of a mental state of projection that precisely elides the boundaries of the real and the unreal in order to provoke a disturbing ambiguity, a slippage between waking and dreaming.” 

With the ‘uncanny’ being a difficult notion to clearly define, it is unsurprising that the sensation of a repressed familiarity is not an experience exclusive to the home. Writers, film-makers and artists for example have interpreted the theory to produce a variety of material which can be easily accessed by the public. This brings us to the public setting, the museum, where the human relationship to the object alters.

The museum is a place for discovery and education. A recent visit to the British Museum demonstrated the differences between public and private display. The display method within the museum and the relationship that a visitor can have with the historically rich objects on show interests me. The large rooms and display cases are arranged to invite visitors to browse the cases’ contents whereas in the home the nature of the display could be a mantlepiece, sideboard, or shelving unit. There is also a contrast between the steady flow of people moving through the museum and the leisurely pace of the home where they do not feel obliged to walk through each room carefully examining the objects decorating the home. The furniture used for display within the home brings up an interesting comparison against the glass cases that act as a barrier for the viewer at the British Museum. With carefully considered lighting and smear-free glass, the museum’s display method creates a professional atmosphere and the visitor’s viewing experience is made as convenient as possible. This also happens within the home, prized ornaments and crockery are placed high in glass fronted cabinets, out of reach, only to be viewed. Claes Oldenburg writes about his performative project ‘The Store’ and described how his “objects became ‘relics’ after their use”. In both cases the contents have lost their functions, objects that were once used are now representations of their own functions.

Another interesting feature evident is in the British Museum’s classification system which demonstrates the efficiency of the display method by grouping objects chronologically and by material or place of origin. With these little clusters of collections it touches on the idea mentioned earlier of the objects projecting the ‘charge’ built up by time and events. Jean Baudrillard discusses in the ‘The Systems Of Collecting’ how;

“a single object can never be enough: invariably there will be a whole succession of objects, and, at the extreme, a total set marking the accomplishment of a mission.”

This is an interesting view on ‘collecting‘ and the idea of possession.

The notion of a display of collections brings me to discuss artist Mark Dion’s ‘Cabinet Of Curiosities’. 

It was an exhibition of his which he recreated with the help of students from the university. They researched the collections in archives around the university’s campus for objects to curate nine themed cabinets of curiosity. 

The visual aesthetic of the cabinets intrigued viewers to try and distinguish the objects individually and to piece together the theme the objects portrayed as a group. Dion brought together education, museum aesthetics and contemporary art practice to create a unique experience. One place that gives a similar experience is the Freud Museum in London.

Known for his contributions to psychoanalysis and collections of ancient antiquities, the contents and layout of Sigmund Freud’s study and consultation room remain untouched. The other areas of what was once his home have been manipulated; doors have been blocked off and other rooms converted into areas of research and display. Visitors are reminded it is a house by the creaking floorboards and original furniture create a feeling of being in a stranger’s house. In Freud’s study, the visitor is greeted by large amounts of visual information, the objects he owned remain standing on their original shelves, no longer serving their purpose as tools of his research.

  This brings us back to the idea of objects becoming ‘relics’ after their use. The contents of Freud’s study are no longer used, becoming peculiar items that can be viewed from behind a rope barrier. The rope is there to preserve the room’s contents, but it also reminds the visitor that they are not in a home. People can recognise and respect a museum barrier and it keeps the objects on display from damage, but in this case it creates a feeling of unease.

The interior of the Freud Museum creates a conflict of emotions. By bringing together ideologies of the home and the museum the visitor feels familiar with the informal setting of the house, but the modifications made means they cannot make themselves comfortable like they would feel inclined to do in an ordinary house. Instead they are forced to join the steady flow of people, looking around each room at the collections on display, redefining the space as that of a museum.

The objects and collections displayed in the spaces I have discussed all seem to have this ‘relic-like’ quality. Whether this is due to the environments they are in or down to a human nature is another discussion. The topics I have discussed and the sources I have used to provide research have been of great interest to me and my artistic practice. There has been a natural progression throughout my research and this is reflected in my studio work. I plan to continue and develop the ideas of interior space and object display, beginning with looking at ‘the collection’ and questioning the methods with which I can convey my ideas best.