Finding the Subject
Interests
Whilst we were exploring our Found Objects project, we both established we did want to work together and many of our previous subjects of interest overlapped; it felt like a natural and compatible collaboration. We sat down and had numerous conversations exploring exactly what subjects we are currently interested in, and themes that will continue throughout our working practices further in the future.
Previously we had worked together on Observing Interpretations, a project with many other peers which led to an exhibition workshop in which we observed the participants within a task we had set for them. For me it had a lot to do with the control and manipulation you can have over the participants and finding many ways to record our observations of them interacting with the workshop. I have always had an interest in observing different people in the same situation and what this tells us about the individual. Often with a focus on their hand and gestural language. For Emma, I believe the chance involved with how participants interact with the actual parts of the workshop was a strong interest within this collaboration. To witness and explore why one person used the pencil to mark make instead of the pre-cut shapes we provided. Observing people is a strong interest we both have within the world and place a lot of importance within emotion reading and understanding. With a curiosity in how something, be it an expression or action, you do with one intention may be interpreted differently by another person.
Whilst we were discussing subjects we had interests in, a lot of our previous research was brought up as well as former ideas for workshops. We recognised we already had a lot of information and hoped we could build upon this to create a collaborative piece of work. I know I was feeling a lot of pressure now to create work quickly and effectively, and I believe this feeling led us down the wrong path of process. Drawing on previous experience and reading, we believed we knew how to direct our audience into acting in a certain way. We decided to focus on building a set of workshops that explored control and manipulation of the audience. However, there was a sense of wanting to explore the hand as a form itself, as well as a tool; with hindsight, it is obvious we had very little research into this field, and yet we still jumped into designing a set of workshops.
Jumping into workshops
We as the creators of the work wanted to manipulate our audience, we wanted to allow the audience to be our focus. Whilst hands would be the stimulus we give the audience. Here we put very little importance on the subject, and more on the participants’ reaction. It wasn’t until talking it through with others that we realised the importance of the information we represent; it will change and affect every way the audience will react to it.
Nevertheless, before we had that moment of clarity we carried on with our initial line of exploration focused on hands split into two categories; how we use them and how they are physically designed. We believed there was a difference between how we use hands as a tool for ourselves or for others. For example, using your hand to pick up that cup of tea is for your own benefit. Paraphrasing Kant’s moral argument here you are using a hand ‘as a means to an end’. Whereas stopping a bus, is for the driver to understand you want them to stop therefore using a hand as ‘an end in itself’. Should these differences be acknowledged? Are they differences or are both tools we use for ourselves? These are questions we did not address, and carried on to develop five workshops, with the mantra, ‘We have no control over the design of our hand, but we do have control over its use’.
LINKS TO WORKSHOPS
Tutorial 1
Our first tutorial discussing the workshops was the first time I really realised we needed to narrow down our thoughts, which we took to mean creating fewer tasks. We understood that taking on that many aspects would be challenging, and so we instantly began editing the workshops. From five, we cut it down to three, and convinced ourselves we had a reason for each one. This was another element that was raised for concern in the tutorial; what is the purpose of each task? What did we want from the task and the participant?
Why were we creating them?
Another element we hadn’t considered was the wording of each task, and how we need to be aware of semantics. This could benefit us in how the task is understood as well as creating an ambience of the task. Control was a word we used without considering how it can be perceived as a strongly manipulative word. Our tutorial presentation was littered with forceful words which we had not meant in such a way. Both of us needed to think and question what we meant to imply contrasted with what we said.
Tutorial 2
Having developed and drawn new proposals for three of the workshops, we were discussing and slowly concluding that there was no difference between gestures as a tool and the hand as a tool. The hand is used to create a gesture; a physical tool to create an emotive tool. So, is the hand designed? Yes. Is the hand a tool? Yes. The hand is designed to be a tool. The word tool means, ‘a device or implement… used to carry out a particular function’. Therefore, the hand is a tool for creating gesture.
Simultaneously to concluding the hand is a tool we were looking at the three workshops trying to create a distinct difference between them, attributing a purpose to each one. We came to three varying uses of the hand as a; communicator, maker and problem solver. It is clear now that we were desperately trying to justify why we had come to these three workshops, but it just wasn’t fitting. It didn’t feel well thought through and we knew there was something wrong. I think this was subconsciously clear throughout this whole process, as we had already set up many tutorials with various tutors; we needed to prove to ourselves and others that we were secure in the project so far. And ultimately we proved ourselves wrong.
Tutorial 3
During the second tutorial of the day it hit us hard that we were going about this wrong; this wasn’t the process we as individuals, or collaborators were satisfied or proud of. Thinking about the outcome without having a thoroughly explored subject was a major downfall here, but we also realised there was a fundamental question we hadn’t even considered; what are we trying to say? We had designed workshops without having any research and needed to severely narrow down our thoughts to create a focus, in turn leading to research and development. And this had to happen before we knew what we were trying to say, way ahead of designing anything to exemplify the focus. There was an assumption we would create a workshop, and I believe this came from having worked on the previous collaboration; generating a sense that we had been successful this way before, therefore our overlapping interest must be born from that.
It was the moment when we questioned everything, and went back to the beginning. There was a couple of days spent creating mind maps looking at everything we had considered and new avenues of focus. We explored many more defined aspects relating to the hand as a tool and truly exhausted our understandings of how the hand is used and what that means.
We began asking questions about two main approaches; objects designed for hands and gestures we create with our hands.
Objects which led to questions such as, how are objects designed to be handled? And what objects can only be used with your hands?
Gestures which led to questions such as, in what scenario is it important to understand gesture? And what couldn’t you do without gesture?
We also began to think about what contextual lens we would fit into? And who our target audience would be?
"this wasn’t the process we as individuals, or collaborators were satisfied or proud of"
After much discussion together, with others, and fleeting research, we came to one subject we both saw potential in; offensive gestures. We were particularly interested in offensive gestures between cultures and across ages. There is an importance in understanding the difference between others interpretations of the gestures. One rude emblem I would aim towards a friend as a joke, I would never dare do in front of my parents. There is a lot to explore within the context of a gesture, as well as the intention of the person yielding the gesture.
