Masters Degree: Contemporary Applied Art

 

J. Cave-Berry  Date: 24/07/'03

Module M10. Exhibition.

 

Aims:

This body of work is based on previous projects that have explored society's interaction with "disabilities". The project aims to use the boat as a metaphor for Humanity’s quest for further knowledge and development of society/culture.

 

Objectives:

To test the system that is designed to deal with "norms" by introducing an abnormal task.

To evaluate the systems that deal with the movement of the boats, and keep related documentation.

To incorporate the response of collaborators into an exhibition piece.

To develop a system to illustrate the relationship of this project with a wider philosophical position.

 

 

Content:

1. Design and manufacture a series of vessels that can be sent via normal postal services to specified destinations.

To document and record all states of this assignment.

To research methods of shipping, and associated records.

To develop a pack of images as a cargo for each vessel to deliver to its destination.

To identify a list of destinations that can be helpful to my future.

To provide opportunity for the collaborator to return a cargo and make documentation or exhibition of their contribution.

To use video or writing to evaluate and conclude this stage of the project.

 

 

Assessment:

The assessment will be presented as an exhibition (with dissertation). Works will be

displayed with research material and collected imagery and items. The practical project will account for 70% of this module. It will be based on coursework.

 

 

Criteria:

30% Conceptual ability and development

05% Research and collated materials

20% Practical skills

15% Evaluation skills

 

Deadline: 31/10/03

 

 

 

The Journey - evolution of disability attitudes

 

Introduction

 

A boat with wheels:

 

• The essence of a boat is that it contains a space, that space provides buoyancy. Similarly our material bodies contain our immaterial 'spirit', buoying us up against the instinctive pull of gravity -   laziness, unconsciousness.
• We are free to travel in all directions on the ocean, exploring the world and our lives.
• Designed to travel the oceans, the boats of disabled people are seen to be materially defective. Disability, visual impairment, dyslexia.
• Society assumes these defects prevent ocean travel. Disabled people are powerless.
• Rather than help repair or adapt the boat for ocean travel, Society 'helps' by fitting wheels, an alternative mode of transport; travel is now limited to artificially defined routes, roads, the paths of opportunity provided by Society that are open to disabled people. These roads are rarely designed to meet the needs of disabled people, more to keep them off the ocean.

 

 

 

The Sequence: from 'Bad' to 'Good':

 

• The sequence - "Black Boat" to "Wooden Boat" to "Oil Tanker' to "Concrete Boat" to Paddle Steamer" - represents both the evolution of attitudes over the last few centuries from bad to better but also the range of moods experienced by disabled people in the present day.
• The Chicken-wire Boat represents the essential timeless idea of discrimination, changing disabled people to fit in with the 'normal' world.

 

 

 

Wooden Boat: the working slave

 

• A practical, conventionally designed working boat like a canal-boat.
• Disabled people are provided with a road, a way forward, through work.
• However they are treated as slaves, used by others.
• Loss of identity, moulded by the work available.
• Minimal power given to disabled people, no encouragement of creativity or developing individual strengths.
• Represents the attitude of Society to disabled people in the 19th Century:- workhouses.
• Represents the acceptance of many disabled people to a life of mundane toil, the only avenue open to them. Feeling like a slave.

 

 

 

The Black Boat: negative image of powerlessness

 

• Ignored, despised, rejected and abandoned by Society.
• Boat made from poor wood, weak, flawed. It has been abused, burnt.
• Stick is used to sense the outside environment and the future, what is ahead.
• Boat is powerless, being pulled along by external forces, Society and the world. It is merely a child's plaything, Society playing irresponsibly with its power over the weak. Dependency.
• No 'road' is provided so persistent impacts with obstacles injure the front of the boat forming a huge scab; the individual is low to the ground with little clearance, not holding their heads high.
• The scab acts both as a defence to obstacles and an offensive battering ram.
• However, the greater the injuries, the more the scab grows around the stick, limiting its freedom of movement and flexibility; the individual now also restricts themselves through a negative, powerless self-image.
• The joint connecting the sensing stick to the supporting column is of poor design, configured inefficiently. The rudder does not guide the stick in a stable but flexible way, instead flipping from one mutable state to its opposite.
• The supporting column is a solid inflexible rod unable to provide any suspension for the sensing/directing system.
• The rudder is solid, attempting to maximise the steering control rather than optimise it.
• Represents the attitudes of Society and self to disability prior to about the 19" century.
• Represents the degenerate state that disabled people shrink to when their needs are ignored; wheels are rusty through lack of use due to obstacles and injury.

 

 

Concrete Boat: strength and control

 

• Concrete is strong but heavy. Spirit is now buoyant enough to support the weight of this strong material.
• Details of past injuries become obvious:- repairs may be undertaken by Society or the individual but they tend to be merely patches.
• The keel at the back has been damaged by obstacles and repaired with an artificial purified material - cement - not with the natural complex material concrete.
• Damage to the hull reveals the skeleton within, identical to that of all human beings. Inside the disabled are just the same. This remains a raw, open wound, visible to all.
• Three wheels:- the front two supply balance and stability, based an balancing opposites, the back one, provides control, a unified control.
• The. surface of the deck reveals an attitude of taking the rough with the smooth, accepting that Society can not perfectly compensate for disability at this point of time; no blame; new growth begins in the smooth.
• The hull also expresses the spirit within, to those that understand. The many bumps are a mixture of messages in braille in amongst random bumps. Those who do not understand see no meaning, those that do, can discern the meaning from the background noise.
• The 'blind person's stick' senses the way forward supported by a complex arched spring, This appears weak and fragile but its design gives it strength. The spring represents the individual’s life journey, their experience. When individuals are conscious of their experience and how it has shaped them, they can use that knowledge to support their means of control, their sensory apparatus (stick) and their guidance mechanism (rudder).
• The rudder provides direction but also a counterweight to the stick preventing it from being oversensitive when it strikes obstacles. The whole mechanism absorbs shocks.
• The rudder is in the air, not the water, but it has been adapted by the individual to serve the same purpose. 'Do-gooders' in Society may try to repair this 'faulty' arrangement not realising how this new adaptation gives power and independence to the disabled.
• The hole in the rudder allows for greater flexibility and provides a safety valve for excess pressure when it is turned sharply to avoid obstacles.
• Wheels angled for improved suspension over obstacles.
• Represents the attitude of Society to disabled people around 2000 AD. The recognition of the needs of the disabled to power, freedom and independence but not yet fulfilled
• Represents the individual's attitude of new self-confidence and independence within a world that still understands little of what disabled people express.

 

 

Chicken-wire boat: the immaterial idea fuelling discrimination, hardly seen

 

Essential being  designed for one purpose, converted to another.

More easily sensed by touch, by feel rather than by sight, by thought.

Timeless representation of the principle: "if it's different to the norm, it can not be as good and so needs to be altered to fit in".

Similar to a Computer Aided Design model of a vehicle, a fundamental foundation upon which details are added. If this design is wrong, everything built upon it will also be.

 

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