Fur, latex, space-time continuum
I had intended to write about a very ambitious and quite strange installation I failed to complete for an art class my senior year, but first I must draw your attention to an amazing thing I found on the internet while trying to research the topic:
http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/vmi/tactile_symbols.htm
This is the section of the website for the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired that provides a Directory to Standard Tactile Symbols, such that blind folks can touch a thing and know that it stands for something else without having to read braille, i.e. a brush is symbolized by a “vertical strip of sandpaper with fringe cut on right side,” etc. Most of the vocabulary encompasses basic emotions, vehicles, foods such as mayonnaise and Dr. Pepper, the words for bathe, hammock, January, yes, money, mailman, pet store… it’s pretty fascinating the way they choose to represent ideas with small touchable objects, like this:
But this was what got me there in the first place:
!!!!
If you think about the actual object that is a vibrator, there is really nothing about it that would imply a V made of fur. The word for “masturbate” is also signified with fake fur. It’s a pretty tidy piece of free-association. I am also impressed that they managed to find fake fur that is so eminently pubic.
There is also, curiously, no symbol for “condom” (much less “sex”) in this system, even though it would be very easy to communicate that idea in this format. What this says about the TSBVI’s ideas about the private conduct of its students is outside of the scope of this blog, but the semiotic universe it introduces is very interesting. I think if I went to this school I would glue bits of fake fur to all of the doorknobs and then giggle uncontrollably to myself, blindly. I might do this anyways, even though I can see.
I generally am not wild about the Surrealists, but Meret Oppenheim’s fur teacup is not only a class act but also frequently springs unbidden to mind in the course of my, um, everyday life, I guess you could say…
What I’m getting at is that, by dint of social convention, some textures and materials are, along with whatever other properties they possess, really fun to make people uncomfortable with. This “irritating fur sculpture” that vibrates is a superb example of this principle:
The text on the website is also priceless, almost flawlessly translated from the German, except that I don’t think that Timo Kahlen, the artist, is really inviting you to be “trapped by this irritating sound sculpture „situated inbetween simulated liveliness and the cold precision of a machine“.” The idea is that you become emotionally invested in the thing and anthropomorphize it and want to touch it, like some kind of sexy, modernist Furby. It also looks wonderfully domestic, like you should be able to take it home with you and frighten your cat with it.
http://soundobject.newmediafest.org/?page_id=7
Anyhow, latex is definitely in the same category as far as implicitly relating to flesh and eroticism; I could go into that more but I won’t, so there.
The project that I wanted to do was partly a product of some art history class I attended wherein the professor mentioned some painting or whatever’s use of “eroticised space,” and then promptly lost my attention as I was wholly consumed by processing this idea. The work that evolved was an attempt to create en eroticized space that also conveyed the idea of eroticized time, thereby proposing a disconcerting continuum of projected kinkiness.
The space itself would feature a huge (about 5 feet by 6 feet) piece of lace woven out of latex tubing, which would spell out “why yes” and stretch between two walls, hopefully mounted strongly enough that people could run into it and bounce back out. The idea would be that it was sort of a full-body equivalent of pushing a button, chosing to consent by throwing yourself bodily into it. I managed, through Herculean effort, about $120 of tubing and at least 48 hours of physically exhausting lacemaking to make the “yes” part, seen here:
Way less cool than “why yes,” a phrase which has some complicated significance which I have largely forgotten, but it looked pretty rad so I was ok with it. In the general vicinity of this item I planned to put a bunch of large cast-latex alarm clocks, about 7x7x3 inches; I later used the mold I made for this purpose to cast some paper clocks, so you can get the idea of the shape from this project:
I really like the eroticized clocks, with their blank round bellies, splayed legs and boob-like bells. I think they would have been hilarious in latex, particularly if they could be made to vibrate and maybe move around a little, so they could be conceptual sex-toys, devices that have no anatomical application but which eroticize space and time. I also had a related idea to make a group of person-sized cast-latex pillars that vibrate quietly, with possibly a lubricated floor to encourage them to drift slowly around the room. For primarily cash reasons, all this did not pan out.
