‘Adhocism’ - the Case of Improvisation by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver
Ad hoc refers to “using materials at hand to solve real-world problems” (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/adhocism). It is the idea of constructing new architecture in a way that is very DIY and is a design principle in itself - in the way that everyday improvisation is used to give an item a new meaning, for example using a bottle as a candleholder, or a book as a doorstop.
"Adhocism celebrates the impossible problem, the question for which there is no final answer." - Charles Jencks
Duchamp was very much known for his reinvention of everyday objects into something new in his readymade series intended to fix what he referred to as “retinal art” - for instance recreating a urinal (’The Fountain’) as a piece of fine art and placing it in a gallery for a new meaning - ie. making a urinal a work of art to be observed and appreciated in a gallery. Other readymades included ‘Trap’ (a wood and metal coatrack submitted to the Bourgeois Art Gallery, Duchamp requested it to be placed near the entryway to allow it to be unnoticed during the art show - in this way Duchamp played with what art can be identified as, and the response to that art).
Adhocism can be related to project 3, as we are illustrators and not engineers, we will not be necessarily capable of creating a machine from scratch, and so in the spirit of Ad Hoc we may give everyday items a new meaning, combining them together to create a machine with a completely different purpose. Myself and my partner during this project may therefore choose to create a machine using objects and repurposing them.
