08/10/18
Richard Serra is an American sculptor that specialises in minimalist, large-scale pieces from sheet metal. Serra manages to manipulate metal into fluid, pliant structures that can be seen as simplistic but also provoke a lot of thought.
Serra comprised a verb list, consisting of 84 verbs such as, 'to roll', 'to remove' and 'to support.' As well as 24 other words such as ‘to carbonise’ and ‘to repair’. These together make up a list of:
‘Actions to relate to oneself, material, place or process.’
We split into groups of four and got stuck in! As a group, we had to pick one object that was to be the main structure in our piece. We chose a keyboard due to the opportunities we saw; these involved taking it apart and putting it back together. I was instantly interested in the keys as by removing them from the keyboard we had the possibility to do something really interesting with them.
The task was to apply four of Serra’s verbs to an object as a way of modifying it. We could do this in one of two ways: each member in the group could pick one word and apply it in turn to the object or we could all decide on the four verbs and compile the sculpture together. We went with the latter. I think this worked really well as we were able to come up with some really fun ideas by bouncing off each other and discussing our thoughts.
Of course, due to the nature of this project there were many risks to consider during the task. We made risk assessments dynamically, considering the safety of each obstacle as we crossed it. This helped to eliminate any hazards that could have had an impact on ourselve and those around us, especially because we were working in a shared studio environment. From the start we wanted to take a lot of the keys off the keyboard so we had to do this safely in a way that didn’t harm anyone. We used a flathead screwdriver to remove the keys so we covered the key with our other hand to stop the key coming off with a lot of force and possibly hitting someone in the eye. We found this to be very effective as it immediately reduced the risk of injury.
The four verbs that we chose were:
• ‘to disarrange’
• ‘to support’
• ‘of conflict’
• ‘to erase‘
We began with 'to disarrange' by taking the keyboard apart to see its internal structure and what we were working with. We removed most of the keys, placing crumpled up tissue paper in their place, and swapping different letters around. I found removing the keys to be quite therapeutic! After this process, the keyboard looked very different to how it began but there was so much room to push it further.
Next we approached the verb 'to support'. After taking the casing of the keyboard apart, it was time to put it back together. We did this by gluing scrunched up balls of tissue paper between the top and bottom casing, as well as straws and some of the circuit from the keyboard. These formed the supporting pillars for the casing, holding the components together.
As our third verb we chose 'of conflict'. For this one we struggled to find the justification for this choice as conflict can be seen in many different ways. We settled on the idea that the materials were conflicting to each other, especially in their unconventional use. I think this is definitely apparent by the use of tissue paper as the supporting material in the design. When compared with the plastic of the casing, tissue paper is a much less rigid materials, having the ability to be easily moulded into different shapes. In order to overcome this, we scrunched it up, therefore making it more dense and better suited for supporting our object.
Overall, I think this worked really well as the tissue paper added a lot more texture to the design, and the use of bright, vivid colours opposed the bland exterior of the keyboard- helping to transform our original object into something a lot more engaging.
We decided to choose the verb 'to erase' to symbolise new beginnings and a clean slate after the growth and assembly of our object. The aim was to use the heat gun to melt come aspects of the keyboard to reflect our choice of verb. It have the desired effect that we were hoping for so we ended up using a lighter as well in order to speed up the process. All of this was done outside the studio, with a bucket of water at hand if something were to happen unexpectedly. This was a good safety feature to employ as, although it can produce engaging effects, fire can be quite unpredictable and we needed to be careful.
The final result wasn't what we were expecting however, there was some idea of burns on the plastic where it had began to melt and on the tissue paper that had virtually disappeared- erased.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this project, I found it really explorative as we were able to push the materials and create something that looks interesting but also unsettling. This is definitely something I'd be interested in experimenting with again as whenever something didn't go to plan we were able to try something new and create a pretty interesting outcome.
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