Becoming Brief...Seth De Silva

This project required myself to take a

journey into another practitioners shoes.

Through this brief I had to investigate, re-

search and emulate the people I was look-

ing into. The project was split into two seg-

ments, initially we had to work in groups in

order to research contextually as well as

through practice our given designer/artist.

My group was given the artists David Fis-

chili and Peter Weiss also known as the duo

Fischli and Weissinteresting brief as the two are not design-

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tion into their practice proved fascinating.

I began my investigation by research-

ing the contextual side of their work. I

online however the bulk of my research

came from books such as Fischli Weiss

and

.It was incredibly helpful to read about

their practice and to understand the con-

ceptual ideas behind their often mun-

dane at a glance work. The key things I

understood about their were for one: they

tend to have a very banal aesthetic, for in-

stance their work titled is a col-

lection of post card sized photographs

of airports. It is with this mediocrity that

they achieve a sense of playfulness and

nonchalance, not being entirely serious.

On the other hand their work

revealed a more philosophical side yet

tainted with their trademark child like ap-

proach. They ask big questions in a very

playful way. I thoroughly enjoy this piece

come of this project. Furthermore I looked

deeper into their most famous piece The

of mechanisms setting of one after the oth-

er. This piece introduced to me the artists

tactile approach to their work; constructing

things with the objects around you. It also

revealed or rather caused me to examine

the idea of cause and effect and the idea

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Practical Research

After my process of contextual research

Rube Goldberg

The Way Things Go.

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Synthesizing Ideas

After the group work came to an end it

In order to clarify my direction and to map out my path to an outcome I began to de-

-pects of Fischli and Weiss work that I en-joyed and felt could be incorporated into

I took to designing the poster was also -

tire poster is created out of objects that

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poster was composed using tactile ma-terials; they were scanned into a program

Fischli and Weiss

The Way Things Go caused me to think -

incorporate a philosophical element to my -

Eastern artwork as I felt I needed more of

-spired by Fischli and Weiss creatures Rat and Bear. I enjoyed how the two were

Fischli and Weiss element; to debate serious is-

the phenomena described my Asian cul-

Outcome Development

The idea for the outcome as I mentioned earlier developed through my readings on Eastern culture. I was intrigued by the idea of a Mandala and what exactly it means. A Mandala is an essential part of Hindu and Buddhist religions, it is supposed to rep-resent the physical and the metaphysical world, as well as the connectivity between the two. It is a tool often used during medi-tation to focus the mind. Mandalas consist

ignorance, yellow, sensation, red, motion, green, karma and blue, cognizance. Man-dalas often have a concentric form and are found in much religious art throughout Asia.

I wanted my work to utilize the idea of using banal objects as well as communicating a

-ings. Much like Fischli and Weiss, I wanted to communicate a very serious message but without using tools of overly artistic value.

Therefore I turned to the kitchen as my studio; using food colouring, washing up

-pressing my idea. I used the same colours found in a traditional Mandala, through the video the colours intertwine, signifying the connectivity of all these elements. At the

-duced by mixing washing up liquid with he food colouring, causes the colours to ex-plode. By this I was trying to communicate what I had learned through my investiga-tion; the idea that destruction can be beau-tiful and is almost inevitable. This is anoth-er key inspiration from The Way Things Go.

the environment around Epsom. I did this as to draw attention to literally the everyday sounds people hear in an at-tempt to ground the piece. To let people know that it is about life, thus not simply

-thermore the music (composed by my-self) at the point of explosion is again to bring attention to the beauty and ac-ceptance of destruction, suggesting that collapse is inevitable and a part of life.2

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Fischli and Weiss.

Sources

1. Fischli and Weiss, Questions.

Fischlie and Weiss, Airports.

Fischli and Weiss, The Way things go.

Bice Curiger (2007). Fischli Weiss: Flow-

ers & Questions: A Retrospective. Lon-

don: Tate Publishing.

2. Mandala

Thames and Hudson (1995). Mandala

(scared symbols). London: Thames &

Hudson Ltd.