Projects/FantasticForgeries

Museum Of Fantastic Forgeries

Authourship & Authenticity Project: Museum Of Fantastic Forgeries

Theme

Fantastic Forgeries presents alternate histories of Dutch material culture through the research and evaluation of existing artefacts – and their appropriation, transformation and remaking. Fantastic Forgeries uses historical crafted objects as a departure point to reflect on the status and practice of craft in our contemporary society. The objects will be used as tools to examine traditional ways of making as well as a formal, tactile, and decorative inspiration to compare when stretching the boundaries of digital fabrication.

In this quarter you will explore into the rich past of Dutch material culture though the Applied Arts and Design collection of the museum Boijmans van Beuningen. You will choose an artefact that speaks to you through its form, function, and its surrounding folklore. You will experiment with various and scanning, modelling and production technologies in order to support the crafting of your own perfect copy of your chosen piece. The idea is to make your replica or 'fake' as convincing as possible by reproducing every detail, before breaking it open into a series of iterations that alter the form and content of the artefact. Can new rituals come about by removing the form out of its original context? Can more and flamboyant objects arise by imagining and inventing the aristocrats that would use them?

The resulting class collection will be turned into a Museum of Fantastical Forgeries with one object per student holding more relations with an actual heritage piece.

Deliverables

1. A (scaled) replica of your chosen artefact from the Boijmans collection using a different medium than the original
2. A well-crafted contemporary transformation based on your chosen object of the Boijmans collection
3. A document and blueprint for the remaking of your original and transformed artefacts
4. A 1000 word statement defining your position of where your specific 'craft' lies in relation newer technologies
5. A visualisation and oral presentation of your research based of mapping/iteration/storytelling assignments.

Written Assignment

1. What is your craft? (define your discipline, method or approach)
2. What are the tools and media of your craft?
3. What are the borders of this practice? (what new media technologies have arisen / what is its future)
4. Connect to a historical discourse and/or give concrete examples of contemporary practitioners
5. Define your position of your practice in relation to newer technologies.