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The Exercises in Futility pieces
were created between November 1996 and March 1997, and consisted of thirty-six
whittled down matches and a whittled down chair, along with their shavings.
They were exhibited in a shop space on Division Street, Sheffield as part of
the 'Elastic Frontiers' exhibition. The text below is taken from the
show catalogue.
Recently I have been deconstructing familiar objects which invite an action,
and meticulously denying that action, creating a functionless item from where
initially form followed function. Both pieces feature a sense of fragility;
the matches become almost figurative, a skeletal atrophic match paradoxically
remaining unburnt; the withered carcass of a chair too weak to bear weight.
Painstaking precision, the removal of a vital part, a sense of frustration;
alienation; of not being whole.
"You are a little soul carrying around a corpse" Epictus
Exercises in Futility had engaged me with thoughts of my own mortality, and
of the frailty and ultimate pointlessness of human existence. It also reminded
me of the vanities and luxuries which held my life together like glue. I learned
to hate the things I needed, my apathy and my reliance on the domestic. The
chair simultaneously provided an anchor to the domestic and a recognition of
days wasted, sitting around doing nothing. |
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