User:Zoe van Peperstraten

DIGITAL CRAFT || TIMELINE

For this practice of Digital craft, I have chosen to focus on the sculpture made by the artist Man Ray, called: L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse. The work that I have chosen is a remade, made in 1972. The original sculpture was made in 1920, but like so many of Man Ray’s early objects, the original work is lost. It consists of a sewing machine, wrapped in a blanket and tied with string. Man Ray’s idea of using a sewing machine was inspired by a simile used by the French writer, Isidore Ducasse, better known as the Comte de Lautréamont, ‘Beautiful as the accidental encounter, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella’. They saw it as paradigmatic of a new type of surprising imagery, as well as replete with disguised sexual symbolism. (The umbrella was interpreted as a male element, the sewing machine as a female element, and the dissecting table as a bed.).

I find this sculpture very interesting. Although it’s been said that there is a sewing machine underneath the blaket, I still want to know if that’s really the case. But we will never know, the only person who knows is the artist itself. So what the object actually is, is left to your imagination. The first step I made was making photographs so that I could document it.

PLAN 1

After making the assignment we got for 24 of April, I had a lot of inspiration. Making the lies was the most important for me. It gave me ideas how to appropriate the sculpture. The lies I made were: Man ray never lost his original work. He simply re-used his original work to make this second work / This work is originally is no artwork. It’s a package that Man Ray had ordered. He thought it looked so interesting, so he used it as an artwork / There is no sewing machine under the blanket. The only thing that is underneath the blanket is air.

The plan I have for now is to recreate the sculpture wrapped with a blanket. But the blanket is tied with a key lock. On the front it says, key is located in the package. This way, you can't get the key, so you still don't know what's underneath it. It is a vicious circle. This idea has kind of the same story of the original sculpture, but put in a different way. It is locked for the outside world.

Plan 2

The second plan I have is also to recreate sculpture. But there will be a peeking hole, so people can finally see what’s underneath the blanket. The sculpture I am going to make is hollow. Also there will be a light in it so you can see inside. But when you look inside the peeking hole is covered, you still won’t know what is underneath is. Like I said, only the artist knows…right?

Assignment 1 20 A5

Assignment 2 Speculative Future & Contrafactual Past Prototype

Future Frame

My classmate chose to focus on frames. For this assignment I had to make a speculative Future. While discussing her process, she mentioned that most of the times the frame of the painting takes away the attention of the artwork itself. So I came up with the idea that in the future this will change. Now the painting itself is the frame, and the frame is the artwork. Now you will focus more on the painting than the frame, and the frame isn't taking the attention away from te painting.

Past Dresser

My classmate chose to focus on the artwork You can not lay down your memory made by the artist Tejo Remy. The artwork shows different layers tied together. It is a symbol of memories. For this assignment I had to make a contrafactual past. I made a dresser with different layers and keys. My dresser resembles the memory of a young child. There are not a lot of memory's yet. So there are not a lot of layers. Every layer is a memory, so the more memories there are, the more layers there will be. So I think the original artwork resembles the memories of an adult. It is falling apart and hold together with a rope, because there are more memories. In my prototype I put some keys with it. Every key opens a memory, in the memory there is a sound or smell. Because this is a prototype there is no actual sound or smell.

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L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse and its speculative future assignment by Eva Schoren

The L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse (The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse) is a secret object, wrapped in a blanket, leaving a lot to the imagination of the viewer. No one knows exactly what is behind the blanket, only the artist itself.

We live in a world where almost everything is accessible, so this object becomes extra appealing for us because in a way we can not access it. Looking to the future, we will enter an era where there are no such things as secrets anymore. Nothing can be hidden for one other and everything has to be there and has to be able to being read.

In the future this accessibility will be even more available. Everything is being shared more and more, and eventually, in the far futrure, there will be no secrets anymore, anywhere. Everything has been shared. Everything needs to be transparent for everyone. So does the artifact. There are no secrets anymore in the world, so the artifact does not contain a secret anymore as well. It is a completely transparent box, which contains nothing and can be see through by everyone. It is wrapped up, but with transparent paper and a transparent line so you are still able to see through everything and be ensured there is nothing hidden anymore.

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The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse and its contrafactual past by Goretti Pombo

What if in the past, they already discovered what lied beneath that blanket? What if it was something they could not understand and found kind of disturbing? For the contrafactual past of 'The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse' I imagined people found a blanket that was showing them the future. This future represented things their minds could not yet fathom in that time . Therefore, they decided to never show that side of the blanket again.

For this work, I used the Sublimation printer to print my created images on fabric. On the outer side of the blanket, I wanted to bring back the texture of the blanket in the original work by Man Ray. The innards of the blanket contain the images of the future.

Afterwards, I made a composition to put the blanket on as I was trying to reproduce the mystery of the original work.

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Plan 3

I got some inspiration from the assignment 'Speculative Future & Contrafactual Past Prototype' to make my final work. The plan I have for now is to make a transparent box. The box is tied with a lock. In the box there will be a object (looks like a key) wrapped in a blanket. Just like the original work, we think we know what is in there, but we don't know what it looks like, and we are still not sure because we can't see it.

The problem with this plan is that it is ambiguous. I still liked the story about the vicious circle, I just had to make a little adjustment.Because it doesn't make sense to make a peeking hole when the box is already transparent.

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End result

For the end result I made a box with a lock on it. I didn't like the transparent box idea anymore, so I made a closed box. In the box is a lock which you can see through. So I got back with the idea of a peeking hole. If you look through the peeking hole, you can see a small package in a shape that could be the key to the lock. With the original work you can see a shape of a sewing machine, but we don’t know for sure if it is one. In my work I used that idea and made a new work that tells the same story. We see a package that is locked, but we can peek through it. If you look inside you see a object shaped as the key of the box. If it is the key, that means you can’t open the box, but you don’t have to because it is the key. If it isn’t the key than you still can’t open the box and you don’t know what is in there. Either way you want to know what the object is. Both the original and my work are frustrating. You can compare it with the Schrödinger's cat experiment. A cat is put in a bunker with an explosive gas. There is a 50% chance that it wil explode, 50% chance it will not. So you never know if the cat is dead or alive untill you look. But if you look inside this box, the cat will explode anyways. You never know what the reality is if you can’t see it.

End result

Peeking hole with and without light

Battery for the led light strip

Sketches of the plans

End result sketch

Schrodingers cat experiment

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Summary || Statement

For this practice of Digital craft, I have chosen to focus on the sculpture made by the artist Man Ray, called: L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse. The work that I have chosen is a remade, made in 1972. The original sculpture was made in 1920, but like so many of Man Ray’s early objects, the original work is lost. It consists of a sewing machine, wrapped in a blanket and tied with string. Man Ray’s idea of using a sewing machine was inspired by a simile used by the French writer, Isidore Ducasse, better known as the Comte de Lautréamont, ‘Beautiful as the accidental encounter, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella’. They saw it as paradigmatic of a new type of surprising imagery, as well as replete with disguised sexual symbolism.I chose this artwork because I find it mysterious. You don’t know what the object underneath the blanket actually is, it is left to your imagination. I find this sculpture very interesting. Although it’s been said that there is a sewing machine underneath the blanket, I still want to know if that’s really the case. But we will never know, the only person who knows is the artist itself. So what the object actually is, is left to your imagination. The first step I made was making photographs so that I could document it.

After making the assignment we got for 24 of April, I had a lot of inspiration. Making the lies was the most important for me. It gave me ideas how to appropriate the sculpture. The lies I made were: Man ray never lost his original work. He simply re-used his original work to make this second work / This work is originally is no artwork. It’s a package that Man Ray had ordered. He thought it looked so interesting, so he used it as an artwork / There is no sewing machine under the blanket. The only thing that is underneath the blanket is air.

I had a lot of different plans. The first plan I had was to recreate the sculpture wrapped with a blanket. But the blanket is tied with a key lock. On the front it says, key is located in the package. This way, you can't get the key, so you still don't know what's underneath it. It is a vicious circle.

The second plan was to recreate the sculpture. But there will be a peeking hole, so people can finally see what’s underneath the blanket. The sculpture I am going to make is hollow. Also there will be a light in it so you can see inside. But when you look inside the peeking hole is covered, you still won’t know what is underneath is.

I liked the vicious circle part of those plans, but I didn't want to recreate the object. I wanted to create something myself. It reminded me of a present or package that you can't open yet.

The third plan was to make a transparent box. The box is tied with a lock. In the box there will be a object (looks like a key) wrapped in a blanket. Just like the original work, we think we know what is in there, but we don't know what it looks like, and we are still not sure because we can't see it. I liked this plan , but the problem with this plan is that it is ambiguous. I still liked the story about the vicious circle, I just had to make a little adjustment. Because it doesn't make sense to make a peeking hole when the box is already transparent.

Then I made my final work. For the end result I made a box with a lock on it. I didn't like the transparent box idea anymore, so I made a closed box. In the box is a lock which you can see through. So I got back with the idea of a peeking hole. If you look through the peeking hole, you can see a small package in a shape that could be the key to the lock. With the original work you can see a shape of a sewing machine, but we don’t know for sure if it is one. In my work I used that idea and made a new work that tells the same story. We see a package that is locked, but we can peek through it. If you look inside you see a object shaped as the key of the box. If it is the key, that means you can’t open the box, but you don’t have to because it is the key. If it isn’t the key than you still can’t open the box and you don’t know what is in there. Either way you want to know what the object is. Both the original and my work are frustrating. You can compare it with the Schrödinger's cat experiment. A cat is put in a bunker with an explosive gas. There is a 50% chance that it wil explode, 50% chance it will not. So you never know if the cat is dead or alive untill you look. But if you look inside this box, the cat will explode anyways. You never know what the reality is if you can’t see it. Only I know what the wrapped object in the box is. That's why there are no pictures on this wiki page of the object itself.

I noticed that I got a lot of inspiration from the assignments. Every time I got a new assignment I took something out of that, and moved on to a new idea. This way I wouldn’t be stuck with just one idea, and the end result will be better. I questioned my plan every time until I was satisfied with it. At the end I can see I used a lot of different ideas together to make my final work. What also was important for me was to talk with people about my ideas. This way I get new insides and try them out to see what works well and what doesn't work. I liked the way of working what we did in the classes. I'm not used to this because I'm studying teacher training. With the teacher training education we mostly paint and are very busy with our own project. With this practice I liked that we worked together and give each other feedback. This worked well for me.