Controlled Convenience:
Docility of the body as a product of Andrea Zittel’s
artworks originally created for convenience of the body
“What you own, owns you”
(Andrea Zittel). Artist Andrea Zittel works at a very personal level to
redesign the daily objects of life that are often taken for granted in the form
they were originally designed. Inspired by her own specific needs, Zittel
creates artworks that adhere to her lifestyle. However, ironically by creating
work that perfectly adheres to individuals, it becomes a very limiting boundary
that will only allow the specific person to perform the specific actions Zittel
designed for. This specification relates to Foucault’s “Docile Bodies”,
particularly through the way Zittel’s work actually utilizes several of the
methods Michel Foucault suggests can control bodies and actions. Zittel’s works
“Mobile Living Units” (1993-1994) and “Carpet Furniture” (1992-1993)
demonstrate this ironic restriction where a tool for personalized convenience
becomes a tool to create limited docile bodies.
Andrea Zittel is an artist
who works in several mediums, scales, and locations. As mentioned, Zittel works
at a very personal level, creating things to fit to her or her clients’ needs.
Zittel’s works often consist of customized pieces, for example furniture, small
living units, and so on. Due to the personalization of her works, Zittel’s
projects are born out of the convenience for their users or occupants. In
support, Michel Foucault’s writing in “Docile Bodies” centers around the
concept of how discipline and punishment can be used to control people.
Foucault observes how the most obedient bodies are achieved through various deliberate
and external measures by an authority figure. For instance, Foucault argues
that division and organization is an essential aspect to controlling
individuals by breaking up communities. This gives each individual a personal
place where they are separately assigned their tasks. Furthermore, Foucault
describes how making a habit out of a task of an individual controls them as
they are physically docile, and accustomed, to the action. Although not
Zittel’s original intention, Zittel’s works act as an authority figure, or
boundary, that controls its’ users actions.
Zittel’s work “Mobile Living Units” was inspired by her
own experience of having to move from a large house in California to a small
and cramped up apartment in New York. Zittel began considering the effect of
one’s spatial boundaries in their daily activities. Furthermore, she had taken
for granted a large living space, but was now confined to a much smaller space.
Yet still, the much smaller space functions to adhere to all her needs. Thus
Zittel created the “Mobile Living Units”, a project of minimum space but
maximum utility. “The units typically provide a bed, closet and
storage space, table and cooking area, all of which collapse into one self-contained
unit on wheels for easy transport, like a pop-up camping trailer. One can’t
help but notice that, in Zittel’s search for functionality, streamlined
simplicity and efficiency, comfort often seems to be sacrificed” (Cash, 128).
Simple functionality is the main purpose of these living units. The living
units do not even have building rules to conform to; they are created only to
consider its occupants’ needs. This is suggestive of how these living units are
in fact very liberating and free of rules. However, still they have the effect
of limiting their occupant according to the boundaries of its functionality.
Zittel’s
living units serve as methods for controlling bodies as Foucault suggests,
through the use of enclosure, separation, and utility. The living units create an enclosed and
separated space for its specific inhabitants. “Discipline
sometimes requires enclosure, the specification of a place heterogeneous to all
others and closed in upon itself,”(Foucault, 74) the living units serve as a
closed space regardless of where it is because of its mobile nature. In theory,
the living unit could be set up anywhere and regardless of what was happening
outside, the inhabitant inside could continue their daily routines normally. Furthermore,
in these small compartments, “each individual has his own place; and each place
is individual” (Foucault, 75). This characteristic of the living units isolates
the inhabitant and confines them to the boundary of the unit. This “individual
place” becomes the limitations to the inhabitant. Hence, the body is docile to
the unit. Zittel did not begin the project to control one’s body, but rather
for one’s convenience in a small space. However, the units actually serve to
discipline one’s body. Foucault states, “a disciplined body is the prerequisite
of an efficient gesture” (Foucault, 82). This statement links back to Zittel’s
original intent- to create a space that was efficient in its functions for specific
individuals.
Another piece by Zittel
titled “Carpet Furniture” done in 1992-1993 also serves to confine the body to
space. However, unlike the “Mobile Living Units” where the space within the
unit was clearly the boundary, “Carpet Furniture” controls the body through two
dimensional means. We are accustomed to the sight of common furniture such as
bed and chairs, and we can easily recognize the two dimensional outlines of
these objects. Zittel takes the top view of furniture and creates carpets of
different compositions. “Striking carpets with geometric forms that
indicate aerial views of a “bed”, “chair” or “table,” allows floorbound users
to change a room’s function simply by switching the rug. Like the emperor’s new
clothes or a children’s game of house, the virtual furniture takes a leap of
faith, essentially bringing order to the air in a room” (Cash, 128). In this
piece, the spatial quality of the room is instantaneously changed by the carpet
placed on the floor. The carpet which is the confining boundary is actually set
by our own habitual attributions of object to function.
In reality, there is a room of open three
dimensional space, but mentally it is limited by the two dimensional patterns.
This project brings out how our bodies are in fact already controlled and
docile to certain things. Like Foucault’s example of a soldier’s posture, some
actions become a habit, “the machine required can be constructed; posture is
gradually corrected; a calculated constraint runs slowly through each part of
the body, mastering it, making it pliable, ready at all times, turning silently
into the automatism of habit” (Foucault, 75). It is our habit to recognize a
bed as a place to lie down, a chair as a place to sit and so on. We are trained
to recognize these objects, to such an extent that even two dimensional
representations can activate these habits. While just changing a flat carpet in
an empty room, really there are boundaries and limitations being set up in the
room because of our habitual attributions of functions.
Although Zittel’s “Carpet Furniture” seem to
restrict the body because of human habit to recognize outlines, the
counterargument is that this form of restriction is in fact liberating through
its limitations. Zittel’s list of “These Things I Know For Sure” addresses the
conflict between liberation and limitation. Number 10 states that “What makes
us feel liberated is not total freedom, but rather living in a set of
limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves”. Zittel suggests
that although in Foucault’s terms her work may be restrictive, creating docile
bodies, this restriction is actually positive as the individual does not feel
that they are being restricted. Zittel further reiterates this point in number
11, “Things that we think are liberating can ultimately become restrictive, and
things that we initially think are controlling can sometimes give us a sense of
comfort and security”. Not only is restriction comforting, but in fact the
empty room with a meaningless carpet is actually unsettling.
Zittel’s work is in some way ironic because
although born for a means of convenience and simplicity, they really serve as
constrictions to the body. Zittel once said, “I want to create a world and live
in it completely”. This statement shines throughout her work, where she builds
things to fulfill the needs of her world, yet building a specific world
confines one to the very specific things it was built for, creating a docile
body in Foucault’s terms.
Citations
Cash, Stephanie. "A-Z And Everything In
Between." Art in America Apr. 2006: 124-131. Print.
