Teapots & To Draw a Name from a Hat

Artemis Papageorgiou — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:01:57 +0000

Click to view slideshow.Through talking with MzTek I began to wonder what could become of a teapot if I embedded it with electronics- a common practice in object hacking. The object loses its context, its expressive ability, and acquires a fake identity. The first step into simulation…

I created a fake yet ontologically vague teapot. At which point the question arose: how can the fake re-enter the sphere of the real, and what kind of reality could house it? According to Baudrillard (Simulation and Simulacra, 1994) a shift in the object’s ontology would allow for a cognitive shift in the user’s understanding. The doubly-faked object turns real in a hyperreal environment.

So hacking was only the beginning. Like a second-order simulacrum the teapot was stripped of a second layer of symbolism. Its form needs to replicate itself in a way that vaguely resembles the initial object. The three replicas were thus built. Gradually they lose their colour, exposing the process and mechanics of their conception.

The third un-teapot like aspect of the object is its playback system, which enables the teapot to state that it is a fake copy. It plays back “This Is Not A Teapot”, and not being a teapot is a tautology as obsolete as it is crucial. That is what Baudrillard calls the “order of sorcery”, a state where the object does not claim to one thing or another, an almost free object, but still a bit unsure?

These two tautological languages reach out to Magritte’s painting Ceci n’ est pas une pipe. The first order simulacrum here is the drawing of the pipe and the second order is the statement below it. Similarly with the teapot, the drawn pipe is freed of its objectivity when we are told not to believe what we see, even if we see that it is fake.

The fourth order of simulacra would be to draw new symbols with new referents into the object, a state of absolute remoteness from the original object.

Mia Gubbay’s Performance, Portraying homonyms, began as an attempt to naturalize the hybrid through creating parallel compositions to those criterion of Bauldrillards ‘Order of Sourcery’ and its own. There is a semiotic development; the pouring of the tea is replaced by the ‘drawing’ of names from a punched in hat yet, something is still. Through drawing, Mia Gubbay will create a series of interventions to take place throughout the Chi-tek tea party at the V&A.

Artemis Papageorgiou

www.artemispapageorgiou.com

Victoria& Albert Museum, Sackler Centre

24&25 September, 11:00am-4:00pm, Performances ~12:00-3:00pm
—————————————————————————————–

TO DRAW A NAME FROM A HAT

Why do we ‘draw’ names out of hats and not pull them? As a spinning Pollock paint-can the expression challenges the idea that to draw is to attempt to control- the inside of the hat- the head- & the random futures of however many people take part in this ‘drawing’. Of course it is a homonym. In drawing the names from the hat we are ridiculous patrons of an irrational decision. The ‘hat’ is a poetic gesture that has reached the status of invalid act vs. practical tradition. Both to draw and to utilize a hat are theatrics implying that the drawee is drawing himself; containing his manner, living himself in contour, tone, inspiration as an adequate frame of his drawn in self- who is himself pulling at an object that can not purposefully be seen- It would be interesting to have a representative from the future draw a name from a hat- no longer stretched by the moment’s indeterminacy he would be just a um puller.

Mia Gubbay

http://imaginationandskepticism.tumblr.com/

http://www.mztek.org/programs/chi-tek/

This Is Not A Teapot

Artemis Papageorgiou — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:56:21 +0000

This Is Not A Teapot is inspired by the semiotics of language used in the homonym painting of Magritte (Ceci n’est pas une pipe). What happens to an object when its formal language does not speak of the object anymore? A pipe, when painted is not a pipe anymore but a representation, and the written text below speaks the same truth.

However, this dual language (of text and image) which creates a tautology is well hidden behind the image of a very truthful pipe. At least at a first glance. A similar tautological language is explored in this project. Three fake teapots and an electronic playback mechanism that states their fakeness. And yet, they are teapots (?).

The margin between the object, its representation and the language used to describe it becomes a space for experimentation and conversation… And so the project begun. A mould and many replicas until the right three ones are chosen. An opaque white, a semi-transparent and a see-through…And then the electronics, the design of the final objects, making them.. Next step a series of drawing performances at the Chi-Tek Tea Party held at the V&A Museum on September 24&25 organised by MzTek, as part of the London Design Festival. More updates to come as me and artist Mia Gubbay are working on the performances.

Fabrique at the Thursday Club

Artemis Papageorgiou — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:08:38 +0000

I am presenting Fabrique at Goldsmiths University’s Thursday Club next week, if anyone would like to know a bit more about Renaissance gardens, follies and technology. Talk starts at 18.00 at the Ben Pimlott building. Together with me, Ollie Palmer will be presenting his Physical Virus project.

Fabrique 2010 with Locus Solus /the space within

Artemis Papageorgiou — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:09:05 +0000

Working on Fabrique for the second time has created a space for thought, almost another ‘locus solus’. Bits and pieces of that space are laid out here.

http://www.artemispapageorgiou.com/index.php?/project/fabrique/

soil + arduino + lights

Artemis Papageorgiou — Sat, 22 May 2010 21:13:33 +0000

Prototype for installation. Controlling DMX lights with Arduino depending on soil moisture. Sensing properties of the soil and plant. Like using a stethoscope. And translate into visual language. Next step

Moisture Sensor

Artemis Papageorgiou — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:16:28 +0000

lets see what next …

Fabrique in Locus Solus at the Byzantine Museum

Artemis Papageorgiou — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:39:47 +0000

Fabrique as part of my collaboration with Out of the Box Intermedia for the production of Locus Solus at the Byzantine Museum, 7 November 2009.

More info here: http://outoftheboxintermedia.org

Photo Credits: Nana Traianou

Fabrique – the prototype

Artemis Papageorgiou — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:07:36 +0000

Fabrique is designed as a responsive garden folly. In its space, it accommodates visions and ideas emerging from the Renaissance garden tradition, landscape theory, and machine structures. In the Renaissance, fabriques (follies) were structures, aimed at staging human interaction in the garden. Narrative was their main means and was born out of classical ideals. It was structured through architectural typology and strategic positioning in the garden. People entered a certain mood and enacted possibilities, such as solitary contemplation, romance, artistic endeavours, or festivities. By using simulation techniques and mechanical tricks, narrative was overlaid with interaction, explicitly designed to engage visitors in a conceptual play between true and fake, natural wonders and manmade achievements.

While the Renaissance folly uses the reproduction of classical myths to talk about man and his (superim)position in the garden, Fabrique uses the garden itself to talk about man and his relationship with landscape. Landscape is the scenario, an end in itself. In Fabrique, landscape constitutes an experiential, procedural space rather than a visual one. It emerges through a cycle of engagement and disengagement with the garden through a hybrid interface, the watering can and the virtual act of watering. Fabrique departs on investigating co-emergent relationships with landscape through participation and collectivity. Only through collaboration and co-orchestration does landscape manifest within the garden, as choreographed bike chains, a form of mechanical plants. Moreover, Fabrique is inspired by early machines appearing in the Renaissance garden. By merging boundaries between the mechanical and the natural through digital technologies, Fabrique attempts to interpret landscape as a result of engagement, and not of nature. In Fabrique, landscape is a state of acting.

general view

Artemis Papageorgiou — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:24:50 +0000

hardware side of thesis

Artemis Papageorgiou — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:15:29 +0000

I am posting here a couple of images showing the hardware part of the system I designed. In the first pic you can see the mechanism which will be embedded inside the watering can. On the right, an RFID reader which recognises tags, and a button (which will be replaced by a tilt sensor) which recognises whether the can is tilted or not. The third system is the RFlink transmitter which sends wirelessly the data: whether the tilt is activated while the tag is recognised, to another arduino which controls the motors. In the second pic you can see the Arduino connected to one of the stepper motors which via shift registers (for multiplying the output pins) and darlington arrays (necessary for stepper motors). On the right there is also the RFlink receiver which receives the data (on or off signal basically) which activate or deactivate the motors and blink an LED. And the final pic, yes its my little messed corner in the lab. more pics to come with bike chains…