Ann Chai
Lit and Crit/ Prof Sacha Frey
Controlled Convenience
“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.
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 living spatial boundaries on 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” (Stephanie
Cash, 128). Functionality is the main purpose of these living units.
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,”(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” (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” (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 confining boundary is 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” (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.
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.
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