Studio Brief 2 - Task 8

Task 8
- Select other objects that are the countercompositionals and counterfactuals to your object. Begin with imaginative and speculative proposals, but eventually arrive at something you can visualise.

Countercompositionals

This is about questioning what makes up an object or experience. Understanding what an object is made up of is thought to be the best way to understand an object and exactly what its purpose is. 

e.g. an apple is made up of a core, seeds, flesh, skin and stalk; each component has a function and the combination of these gives an apple its specific qualities.

A countercompositional replaces one or more of the objects components to radically change it into a different object. 
e.g. an apple composed of other materials could be a completely different object.

Figures 1 and 2 show all of the pieces that are in the cassette tape laid out. This research will show the parts that are most vital for the cassette tape to work, allowing for these things to be manipulated to make the countercompositionals of this object. The tape being the most important material in order for it to perform its main function of providing audio has been replaced with a different kind of tape (fig. 3) to play on this idea of countercompositional concepts.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Todd McLellan

Todd McLellen's work is based upon the principle of countercompositional studies of an object or activity. This artist has created a series called 'Things Come Apart' which explores retro and modern daily items, used in our everyday lives. Todd has presented some of the pieces in a very formal and well thought out manner and some in a more experimental way. I like the contrast of these two ways as one shows how the object serves a function and purpose to us and the other explores the more emotional association we have it and it looks at reactions or movement. I would like to use both ways when presenting my cassette tape, but the more experimental way will be an interesting way to represent how the cassette tape causes movement (dancing) and fills the room with the sound.
I drew around the final image to see if there was a common shape that they objects were arranged into or if it was fairly dependent on the particular object. I found that the more traditional method of laying the objects out relied on a fairly squared and straight edged layout and the more experimental method was very dependent on the object itself and what is being illustrated. 

Disassembly behind the scenes from Todd McLellan Motion/Stills Inc. on Vimeo.

Counterfactuals
Another important part of understanding an object is to understand its functions in the systems to which it belongs. 
e.g. an apple functions within the system of commodities and is used as a food.
A counterfactual is when one or more of the functions are replaced and it is now associated as something we may not have thought it would have been before.
e.g. an apple that is extremely expensive, poisonous etc.

The two images below show my experimentations based on the counterfactual concept. Figure 4 shows the cassette tapes now being used for stairs down to a vinyl store in London. This changes the function of the cassette tape which is to provide sound and now associates it with something strong enough for people to walk up and down. Once again playing on the idea that the cassette tapes main function is to provide sound, the tape has been removed and replaced with elastic bands (Fig. 5), showing the mechanism of the tape but removing the function. 

Figure 4

Figure 5