Rachel Whiteread-‘Like Making Air Solid’

Having the preference of viewing the artwork first before reading the description, when I first saw the 25 blocks, the textures looked like large gummy candies or like ‘headless” chess pieces. After reading the description, it dawned upon me that these are like “solid air” under the chairs we are sitting on. Making things out of the negative spaces we usually conveniently forget, or neglect is actually quite fascinating. The idea of making absences seem present really got me interested in her works.

1. What got her interested in casting? 

Her parents played a huge role in paving her interests in arts. “During her childhood in London, Whiteread’s parents’ interests in art and architecture made an enormous impact on her understanding of form and material. Her father’s fascination with urban architecture and her mother’s artistic practice allowed her to see the intersection of home and studio, life and art. Whiteread fondly remembers helping her father lay a concrete floor in their basement to convert it into a studio. The processes of looking, emptying, and filling run throughout her work, revealing how the surfaces of daily life can disappear and reappear, bearing the traces of their previous lives.”

In an interview at Tate, Whiteread mentioned that her eureka moment came when she was in the second year of college, doing a foundry course when she placed a spoon into some sand and poured molten metal over it. It became a spoon without its spoon-ness. The curve inside the spoon was lost and that was when she began to delve more into casting.

2. How did she create her artworks?

She would draw them out first before letting her works take the form of casts, which are formed when a liquid material is poured into a mould and allowed to solidify. Using materials like concrete and resin, her sculptures take the shape of everyday objects.

For instance, the drawing she had for Twenty-Five Spaces.

3. Impact and meaning of her artworks:

She felt it was very similar to the times where she experienced a lot of people sleeping on the streets, like the cardboard city in Waterloo, making her feel that many things are like lost human beings. The sense of loss is what pushed her to make more. Taking on the essence of humanity, she explored more into everyday objects like hot water bottles, mattresses, beddings, baths or things that you will find in a domestic home.

She kept going back to hot water bottles because she felt that it was a good material to test her casting materials with. She also tried using rubber gloves but hot water bottles looked more like headless, limbless torsos, having a nurturing element to them. She also made certain creases to make them look like a ribcage. For instance, the Untitled Pink Torso shown below.

4. Thoughts on her artworks-“Minimalism With A Heart”:

Whiteread focuses on what is not there, making the invisible-visible by capturing negative spaces around us. By doing so, she frees her subject matter of practical use, devoid of utility. These familiar architectural forms allow the viewer to simply look and consider the meaning behind the sculptures.

She evokes strong emotions in her viewers by keeping the history of the object in her work. I feel that her works are like breathing life into the stillness, leaving a new permanence-memories. This is because the objects she casts – mattresses, beds, sinks, chairs – all have an intimate, physical relationship to the body despite their stark appearance. As objects that are meant to be held, used, and inhabited, their reference point is always human. And because they are always second-hand, they have had a life prior to the artist’s treatment of them, and thus bring their own histories to her work.

References:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rachel-whiteread-2319/five-things-know-rachel-whiteread

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rachel-whiteread-2319/rachel-whiteread-conversation

https://gagosian.com/artists/rachel-whiteread/

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Drawing-for-Untitled–Twenty-Five-Spaces/0869FA07AE19D51B

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/sep/12/rachel-whiteread-tate-review

With the proliferation rate of the internet and the prevalence of information-communication technology (ICT) in our daily lives, these have become vital and fundamental to us. Living amongst these digital artefacts results in heavy reliance on them. This then increases the responsibility of the designer who needs a reflective mind to examine the purpose, outcomes and benefits of the design or product they are going to produce which is what constitutes a thoughtful design.

Examining the purpose first requires the assessment of the situation-target audience, environment, culture and expectations of the society. It must have high affordance- easily understood by users, which has basic functions that primarily satisfy their needs. Since the design and products produced shapes how the users are going to function, designing this eventually design peoples’ life. Building upon the designer’s judgement skills together with assumptions and societal beliefs, it makes designing a complex matter.

While producing the outcome, designers have to constantly refine and redefine what is the most ideal and suitable design as the world is everchanging which also means that stakeholders and factors which causes constrain that restricts the design are changing as well. It is particularly useful if the designers know his or her materials well in order to maximise the quality of the materials as well as to reduce the shortcomings of it. As such, it is mentioned in the chapter that the complexity of design creates imperfections as an unintended consequence or side effect of the lack of a thorough reflection during the process.

Keeping the benefits of the design in mind, the designers have to consider the user’s habits, traditions and practice according to the societal cultures, making it highly relevant to the society we are living in. This allows people to be more accepting of a new design, influenced by values and ideals we have grown to be familiar with.

Good designs can also help to make society more inclusive and welcoming. The idea is to develop something of lasting quality that is the most suitable and creative given the existing conditions. For instance, if we were to compare these 2 signs, the one on the right seems more positive than the other one, making the illustrated person more active and willing to participate in activities instead of just being a passive citizen. This will also gradually change the society’s perspectives of these group of people into a more positive one.

The handicap symbol gets an update –at least in New York state. Although Singapore is still using the old symbol, I am looking forward to seeing Singapore adopting the new symbol to make our society more inclusive and positive.

I believe most people enjoy simple designs that allow us to “communicate” even without talking. This is especially so with the use of symbols like the one above.  These images below were from a tourist in Japan who really appreciated the simple yet effective design thinking in public spaces that allows everyone to move in order. Although in Singapore, the seats are colour coded on the MRT, I think that these symbols filled seats could be a more effective way to remind commuters to give up their seats to the people in need.

Another example of a thoughtful interaction design would be the Stroller Adapted Elderly Wheelchair which aims to create a better connection between a wheelchair-bound grandparent and their grandchild.

This project features a pretty unique idea, a combination of stroller and wheelchair to facilitate better interaction between 2 generations. Stroller Adapted Elderly Wheelchair aims to create a better connection between a wheelchair-bound grandparent and their grandchild, this unit can also function as regular stroller or wheelchair.

Pushing a stroller and a wheelchair at the same time is a challenge. Some people use a connector to attach them side-by-side. This arrangement takes up a lot of space on the footpath, however, and is heavy to push. Most importantly, this side by side arrangement disallows direct interaction between the occupants.

Unnecessary parts are removed to reduce weight. The baby seat is placed in front of the wheelchair with locking joints. The large side wheels can be detached when only the stroller function is required. The wheelchair can be folded flat for easy storage and transportation. The baby seat can be used as a child car seat.

I think that this design is compact and provides proximity between the grandchild and the elderly. This is important as a wheelchair-bound elderly is usually frail and having their grandchildren close to them is a form of comfort as well.  This is especially important in an ageing society where enhancing and maximising grandparent-grandchild interaction really matters in time to come.

References:

Stroller Adapted Elderly Wheelchair Offers Better Interaction Between Wheelchair-bound Grandparent and Their Grandchildren

https://medium.com/ux-thoughts/three-little-examples-of-thoughtful-everyday-designs-765a27c322fc