Reminissions

A bit of a belated continuation of the activity from last week where we looked at What's and Idea? What's a Concept and where do I get one?, I interviewed my object the same way in which I was required to approach the objects which belonged to other people, that is, removing all assumptions and associations, letting the object speak through the qualities which I can perceive.

I found this a little bit easier and worked around adapting the questions I had asked for the other objects. I think some of my bias and familiarity did come through in the end but I tried to answer based purely on the visual aesthetics and their connotations. Interview can be found by clicking here.

Next step now is to look at the interviews conducted by other people with my objects and from there I found it interesting to look at the different styles and approaches other people had taken to this activity.

I liked that Jason made assumptions on weaving together almost a character for it, giving it a set name (pillyD) and experiences ("I came close to being lost while on school camp") I do not know if this was the case, but I am wondering whether he was relating it to a similar object he has or once had and basing his answers around that whilst still basing it on physical features of it ("Have you always had an image?; No, my owner gave me a transfer"). I thought it was daring to try guess at fairly specific details of the object which are in fact pretty open ended to guess at correctly but I enjoyed reading about it.

I felt that Lisa tried more to personify it, giving it more human characteristics and reactions to her questions (" I’m old enough now though i feel young as I’m in a good condition.") Though I feel like she kept some of her questions fairly obvious ("what colour are you?; Creamy white"), with a few of the questions she began to tap into some of the less obvious connotations behind the physical characteristic and letting the object speak for itself ("I’m a blanket i was used to keep warm, to comfort a child, to be an important object in the life of a child that is my use and will forever be my use for generations.")

Ryan seemed a midground between Lisa and Jason, trying not to stamp it with any fixed meaning or assumptions ("Does your owner like Donald Duck?; All kids like Donald Duck..."), but evidently also trying to find some meaning from the physical ("you're in a good condition, were you well looked after?; yush my owner loves me") and the connotations of what it was ("is the current owner the intended recipient of you?; "Probably it was made for the family.")

Overall, the related words arose repeatedly from all three interviews were faded, frayed, thinned, old, unstitched, delicate, repaired which related to the immediate physical appearance of it from which everyone could understand that it was an old object which had been in someones posession for an extended period of time. The other main idea came from the words precious, comfort, reassurance, emotionally, depressed, child, relationship, small, Donald Duck, and cartoon which began to read past the physical into the connotations of the object and letting it speak for itself and the sentimental value behind it. They were all able to understand it as a momento from childhood which had endured many experiences and emotions.

From these common ideas and words, I now have to develop a visual signifier to communicate these same qualities without directly representing my object, which I feel the purpose of which is to explore the symbols and triggers from which understand both established meaning and associated meaning from contextual factors.