Running Head: FEELING THOUGH OBJECTS 1

Feeling though Objects

By Richard Clarkson

Tutor: Johann Nortje

CCDN231

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I have yet to experience any of the great installations from form Richard Serra or

Robert Irwin and many other artists and designers though I plan to see and

experience these in the coming years of my life. I have however experienced

some less monumental aesthetic experiences that have greatly affected the way I

interact with certain objects; the two major examples are sheepskin rugs, and

specific types of music. These are both very personal experiences each with its

own connotations and memories attached to it. Theses and other moments and

experiences make up who I am, they are the events that shape my life and they

are the moments I look forward to living in the future.

A sheepskin rug’s aesthetic experience comes from its texture and its smell and

is something that for me is deeply ingrained in my past. As a baby I played, ate,

slept and was even changed on a sheepskin rug. The touch of it on either hands

feet or body is a soft warm feeling of home and family that no other object can

accomplish. For me a sheepskin rug starts to become more than just an object, it

becomes a feeling in its purest form. This ability of objects and artifacts to carry

memories and feelings is what my project is about; I want people to realize the

relationships we form with the objects that surround us and begin understand

the experiences we gain from them.

Though music is not an object as such it has the same effect on me as a sheepskin

rug. Particular songs bring memories of the first time I heard the song, where I

heard it, who I listened to it with, what mood I was in and what I was doing when

I first heard it. In terms of memory producing ability I argue that music can rival

that of a photograph. Ask yourself why we take photographs and you will find

that it is almost always to freeze a moment in time for referral at a later date. The

thousands of photos that sit hidden away in photo albums are a testament to

this. We keep these albums for times when we wish to re-experience the

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moments captured. This re-experiencing aspect in music and objects is

something that is yet to be fully explored and is a strong point in my project.

In project two of this paper I looked at the haptic sensory experience of the word

“precession,” which I expressed as a hidden needle which the user had to

experiment with and interact with in order to activate it. The experience was

also a challenge to the user to balance on the point of the needle and remain on it

creating a very fine line between play and pain.

This essence of a playful challenge is what I transferred to an artifact that

is worn on the back of the neck by a user according to a specific schedule. The

challenge of my artifact is for the user to achieve perfect posture in keeping a

perfectly vertical spine, if the user is not within this safe zone he/she will receive

a small electric shock as motivation to correct their posture. It consists of a

modified “electric shock trick pen,” two horizontal mercury switches in opposite

directions and an ergonomically designed neck contact with two electrodes on

the right and left side of the Sternocleidomastoid muscle, a muscle on both sides

of the neck that when triggered with a small electric shock causes the head to tilt

to the triggered side and rotate so that the face is turned upwards towards the

opposite side. (James H. Clay, 2008, p. 100) As the mercury switches are

connected separately I used this to my advantage to pinpoint where the electric

shock would hit, I could also decide which side it would happen on, the obvious

method would be to shock the user on the same as that they were leaning to so

they would back away from the shock back into the safe zone. However to make

things more interesting and to add an element of humor to my object I put the

shock on the opposite side, this means the user must lean towards the shock, a

completely unnatural reaction to an electric shock. All of these aspects and twists

are to get the user thinking about the relationships we can develop with objects

and to get the user to truly experience them to the full. To ensure the user can

gain the most benefit from my object the schedule is progressive, thus as the user

becomes more comfortable with it each day the amount of required usage goes

up.

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Overall I have focused on creating an object that is as much about the users

thought proses as it is about the aesthetic experience. For me this was an

opportunity to share what I believe to be at the very core of our social beings,

our feelings, as represented though objects and artifacts.

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Bibliography

Dewey, J. (1980). Art as Experience. New York: Perigee Trade.

James H. Clay, D. M. (2008). Basic clinical massage therapy: integrating anatomy

and treatment. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

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