AND YET, I STILL WANT IT
What makes a chair a desirable object? Its functionality as a place to sit? The status it may bring an individual if it were a designer piece or one of a kind? Or, the aesthetic pleasure it provides the individual? Indeed, all of these are valid sources of desire and can be applied to any designed object. In stripping the chair of its desirability as a functional piece of furniture, I seek to expose other aspects of desire and the effect these have on our relationship with art and design.
Perhaps the object which has been the source of much passion, and a challenge to all luminary designers of the last century, is the chair. Each seeking to make their design more ergonomic than the last, more materially advanced and more conceptually provocative. I considered the function of a chair in essence; being an object of design utilised by all on a daily basis. By adding to the chair the element of physical discomfort, through the addition of patterned nails, one is forced to question the basis of any desire for the chair. The forms the nails take appear as a growth, something which was not present in the chair’s original production but has appeared over time.
By making the object inaccessible to the user it becomes an object for viewing. The utilitarian understanding of desire as characterised by John Stuart Mill identifies the act of desiring to be a fulfilment of desire in itself. We do not necessarily need to possess the object of our desires, only to meditate on whatever it might be, experiencing joy in a detached regard for it.
When one is forced to view the chair as a dysfunctional object, its existence as an object of design is thrust into question. Just as Duchamp’s urinal re-contextualised and repurposed an everyday object, the destruction of the chair’s functionality pushes the piece into the realms of art. Were the chair to be placed in a gallery it would not go be out of place, nor would it be sat on. It has become a work of art, an object of desire in itself but in opposition to the functional desire as promoted by theoreticians such as Giles Deleuze and Guattari.
In considering Deleuze’s theory of desire as a productive force, my piece seeks to break the ‘desire-machine’. It recalls the object back to a time of design for decoration’s sake, a desire for the aesthetic form above the functional. This is by no means a promotion of one over the other but a means to force the viewer to consider the root of their desires for an object.
Throughout my experimentation I have challenged the materiality of our desires, the focus which we place on the objects themselves. I use the example of gold, historically the root of many an individual’s desire and in some cases their downfall. A desire for gold is based purely on the wealth attached to it, given the rarity of the substance. Its value lies in its availability, more so than any practical application it might have. Particularly in my own life, being involved in the jewellery industry for some time, I have become acutely aware of the importance placed on this substance. Just as the function of the chair is called into dispute by the disturbance of the seat, I endeavoured to do the same with the substance of gold by painting a series of jewellery pieces black. The value of the objects has not changed but, by covering the gold, their very function as adornment has been disturbed.
Desire drives design, but the root of our desires is multi-faceted and can be called into question by the slightest of alterations. By destroying the purpose of a chair as ‘a chair’ it is not made any less desirable. In fact, the chair as a work of art, depending on various factors, could make it more valuable to many. In defying the function of a chair I have laid bare its form and forced the viewer to question what makes us want.