100 chairs of solitude: Study: SOAS smoking seat

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book 100 Years of Solitude the intricate social structure of generations ofthe same enclosed community are rigorously and ruthlessly cross examined, effectively describing stereotypes evident in every aspect of a wider world in transformation. Individual and collective desires for manifestations of progress, inevitably laden with perceptions of perfection, the contributions to and the consumption of these things drive the central stereotypes. It is a study of the complex yet concrete competition between the autonomous individual and every individuals integral part of larger social constructs that highlights the apparently irreconsilable extremes that continue to give our evolving species the neccesary conditions to facilitate change no matter how apparently destructive. It is this muddy flux that interests me and has inspired this blog producing a collection of studies, prototypes and locations focusing on one type of object.

Solitude

Is subjective yet can be simultaneously experienced by more than one person. Extremes of solitude are either difficult or unwise to obtain or pursue but paradoxically perceived to have individual or social benefit.

The chair

Is a signifier of the sole individual or purpose. Its form can be manipulated to denote a more inclusive function but it is predominantly a powerful symbol of the user. As objects studied in anthropological terms they have been symbols of both subjagation and emancipation, inclusion and exclusion, physical and metaphysical. The quantity of 100 refers to a the same as 1, 10, 1000. The exact number of chairs featured in this project is irrelevent,it is the concept of a repititious and accumallative mass that has formed this project.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Study: SOAS smoking seat

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