C’EST LA VIE
2015
metal, stone, wood, felt, rubber
various size



Set of no-name objects with indefinite function, constituting a kind of an alphabet of qualities: heavy, empty, flat, long. Potential implicit in abstract forms, materials and the relations between them provokes the user to search for the diverse possibilities of use.
+ text C’est la vie: the potential and the interpretation of objects
published in Smutek Konkretu ed. B. Świątkowska, Fundacja Bęc Zmiana, Warsaw, 2016
and online publication OUT OF STOCK

Although changing a function usually happens intuitively, it calls nevertheless for some imagination or even for a specific sense of humor. Limitations, or so it seems, result from too great of an attachment to conventions. Deadly seriousness can arrest the discovery of a potential inherent in an object-thing and its application for a purpose different from the one originally intended.
Yet, can one even talk about something like an original or proper use of a thing? One surely can, since match serves the purpose of lighting candles and cigarettes. Nevertheless, it can equally well serve as a hook, a counting stick, or a toothpick. Although it can perform all these functions, it will remain easily visible that it is used only as an ersatz and so one can expect biting remarks, since, alas, ‘it is not what it serves for’. But why not, actually? After all, it serves the purpose we use it for, it serves the way the context calls it to serve.

fragments of C’est la vie: the potential and the interpretation of objects