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A found object (a loan translation from the French objet trouvé), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function

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Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

A found object (a calque from the French objet trouvé), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function. Pablo Picasso first publicly utilized the idea when he pasted a printed image of chair caning onto his painting titled Still Life with Chair Caning (1912). Marcel Duchamp is thought to have perfected the concept several years later when he made a series of ready-mades, consisting of completely unaltered everyday objects selected by Duchamp and designated as art. The most famous example is (1917), a standard urinal purchased from a hardware store and displayed on a pedestal, resting on its side. In its strictest sense the term "ready-made" is applied exclusively to works produced by Marcel Duchamp, who borrowed the term from the clothing industry (French: prêt-à-porter, ' ready-to-wear') while living in New York, and especially to works dating from 1913 to 1921.

Found objects derive their identity as art from the designation placed upon them by the artist and from the social history that comes with the object. This may be indicated by either its anonymous wear and tear (as in collages of Kurt Schwitters) or by its recognizability as a consumer icon (as in the sculptures of Haim Steinbach). The context into which it is placed is also a highly relevant factor. The idea of dignifying commonplace objects in this way was originally a shocking challenge to the accepted distinction between what was considered art as opposed to not art. Although it may now be accepted in the art world as a viable practice, it continues to arouse questioning, as with the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize exhibition of Tracey Emin's , which consisted literally of a transposition of her unmade and disheveled bed, surrounded by shed clothing and other bedroom detritus, directly from her bedroom to the Tate. In this sense the artist gives the audience time and a stage to contemplate an object. As such, found objects can prompt philosophical reflection in the observer ranging from disgust to indifference to nostalgia to empathy.

As an art form, found objects tend to include the artist's output-at the very least an idea about it, i.e. the artist's designation of the object as art-which is nearly always reinforced with a title. There is usually some degree of modification of the found object, although not always to the extent that it cannot be recognized, as is the case with ready-mades. Recent critical theory, however, would argue that the mere designation and relocation of any object, ready-mades included, constitutes a modification of the object because it changes our perception of its utility, its lifespan, or its status.

Alphonse Allais, Des souteneurs encore dans la force de l'âge et le ventre dans l'herbe boivent de l'absinthe, carnage curtain, before 1897.

One curator considers East Asian scholar's rocks to be early examples of found objects. Found and collected in natural settings, the rocks are changed only minimally for display, seldom beyond the addition of a display stand, and are meant to be contemplated as idealized representations of nature. Geological processes, chief among them erosion, give the rocks their distinctive qualities, rather than any modification by an artist or artisan.

In 2017-2018, the French expert Johann Naldi found and identified seventeen unpublished works in a private collection, classified as a national treasure on May 7, 2021, by the French Ministry of Culture, including Des souteneurs encore dans la force de l'âge et le ventre dans l'herbe by Alphonse Allais, consisting of a green carriage curtain suspended from a wooden cylinder. This work was certainly exhibited at the Incoherents exhibitions in Paris between 1883 and 1893. According to Johann Naldi, this work is the oldest known readymade and was a source of inspiration for Marcel Duchamp.

Duchamp's "readymades"

Marcel Duchamp coined the term ready-made in 1915 to describe a common object that had been selected and not materially altered in any way. Duchamp assembled Bicycle Wheel in 1913 by attaching a common front wheel and fork to the seat of a common stool. This was not long after his Nude Descending a Staircase was attracting the attention of critics at the International Exhibition of Modern Art. In 1917, , a urinal signed with the pseudonym "R. Mutt", and generally attributed to Duchamp, confounded the art world. In the same year, Duchamp indicated in a letter to his sister, Suzanne Duchamp, that a female friend was centrally involved in the conception of this work. As he writes: "One of my female friends who had adopted the pseudonym Richard Mutt sent me a porcelain urinal as a sculpture." Irene Gammel argues that the piece is more in line with the scatological aesthetics of Duchamp's friend, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, than Duchamp's. The other possible, and more probable, "female friend" is Louise Norton (later Varèse), who contributed an essay to The Blind Man discussing Fountain. Norton, who recently had separated from her husband, was living at the time in an apartment owned by her parents at 110 West 88th Street in New York City, and this address is partially discernible (along with "Richard Mutt") on the paper entry ticket attached to the object, as seen in Stieglitz's photograph.

Research by Rhonda Roland Shearer indicates that Duchamp may have fabricated his found objects. Exhaustive research of mundane items like snow shovels and bottle racks in use at the time failed to reveal identical matches. The urinal, upon close inspection, is non-functional. However, there are accounts of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella being with Duchamp when he purchased the original Fountain at J. L. Mott Iron Works.

An Oak Tree by Michael Craig-Martin; 1973

The use of found objects was quickly taken up by the Dada movement, being used by Man Ray and Francis Picabia who combined it with traditional art by sticking combs onto a painting to represent hair. A well-known work by Man Ray is Gift (1921), which is an iron with nails sticking out from its flat underside, thus rendering it useless. Jose de Creeft began making large-scale assemblages in Paris, such as Picador (1925), made of scrap metal, rubber and other materials.[citation needed ]

The combination of several found objects is a type of ready-made sometimes known as an assemblage. Another such example is Marcel Duchamp's Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?, consisting of a small birdcage containing a thermometer, cuttlebone, and 151 marble cubes resembling sugar cubes.

By the time of the Surrealist Exhibition of Objects in 1936 a whole range of sub-classifications had been devised-including found objects, ready-made objects, perturbed objects, mathematical objects, natural objects, interpreted natural objects, incorporated natural objects, Oceanic objects, American objects and Surrealist objects. At this time Surrealist leader, André Breton, defined ready-mades as "manufactured objects raised to the dignity of works of art through the choice of the artist".

In the 1960s found objects were present in both the Fluxus movement and in pop art. Joseph Beuys exhibited modified found objects, such as rocks with a hole in them stuffed with fur and fat, a van with sledges trailing behind it, and a rusty girder.

In 1973, Michael Craig-Martin claimed of his work , "It's not a symbol. I have changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree. I didn't change its appearance. The actual oak tree is physically present, but in the form of a glass of water."

In the 1980s, a variation of found objects emerged called commodity sculpture where commercially mass-produced items would be arranged in the art gallery as sculpture. The focus of this variety of sculpture was on the marketing, display of products. These artists included Jeff Koons, Haim Steinbach, and Ashley Bickerton (who later moved on to do other kinds of work).

One of Jeff Koons' early signature works was Two Ball 50/50 Tank, 1985, which consisted of two basketballs floating in water, which half-fills a glass tank.

Junk art at Oak Street Beach

Art made from trash found on the streets of New York City by artist Bobby Puleo (2021)

A specific subgenre of found objects is known as trash art or junk art. These works primarily comprise components that have been discarded. Often they come quite literally from the trash. One example of trash art is trashion, fashion made from trash. Marina DeBris takes trash from the beach and creates dresses, vests, and other clothes. Many organizations sponsor junk art competitions. Trash art may also have a social purpose, of raising awareness of trash.

A permanent yet evolving example of junk art on Highway 66 near Amboy, California

Creating and using trash art can expose people to hazardous substances. For instance, older computer and electronic components can contain lead (in solder and insulation). Jewelry made from these items may require careful handling. In France, trash art became known as "Poubellisme", art made from contents of "poubelles" (trash bins).[citation needed ]

Artists who create art from trash include:

Spanish artist Francisco de Pajaro ("Art is trash" or "Arte es basura")

Australian artist Paul Yore, who uses trash to create a kind of "kitsch queerness", "bad taste aesthetic", in order to challenge people's perceptions, and to examine excess consumption in society.

Found objects can also be used as musical instruments. It is an important part of the musique concrète genre.

Found sounds have been used by acts including Cop Shoot Cop, Radiohead, Four Tet, The Books, and Björk. The musician Cosmo Sheldrake, who uses found sounds from the natural world in his music, has stated that incorporating the "soundscape" of ecosystems into music may be an effective means of communicating important messages about issues such as climate change.

The found object in art has been a subject of polarised debate in Britain throughout the 1990s due to the use of it by the Young British Artists. It has been rejected by the general public and journalists, and supported by public museums and art critics. In his 2000 Dimbleby lecture, Who's afraid of modern art, Sir Nicholas Serota advocated such kinds of "difficult" art, while quoting opposition such as the headline "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all". A more unexpected rejection in 1999 came from artists-some of whom had previously worked with found objects-who founded the Stuckists group and issued a manifesto denouncing such work in favour of a return to painting with the statement "Ready-made art is a polemic of materialism".

Many modern artists are notable for their use of found objects in their art. These include the following:

1. ^ Stribling, Mary Lou (1970). Art from Found Materials, Discarded and Natural. Crown Publishing Group. p. 2. ISBN 0-517-54307-9. Found Art is a term coined to describe works which are composed in part or entirety of natural or salvaged objects.

2. ^ Dayton, Eric (2 February 1999). Art and Interpretation: An Anthology of Readings in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Broadview Press. p. 259. ISBN 1-551-11190-X. On the surface, anyway, there is no mystery about the making of the great bulk of works of artifactual art; they are crafted in various traditional ways-painted, sculpted, and the like. (Later, I will attempt to go below the surface a bit.) There is, however, a puzzle about the artifactuality of some relatively recent works of art: Duchamp's readymades, found art, and the like. Some deny that such things are art because, they claim, they are not artifacts made by artists. It can, I think, be shown that they are the artifacts of artists. (In Art and the Aesthetic I claimed, I now think mistakenly, that artifactuality is conferred on things such as Duchamp's Fountain and found art, but I will not discuss this here.)

3. ^ Tankersley, Leeana (14 June 2009). Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places. Zondervan. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-310-56182-8. ... That is what we call found art-a genre of art that started umpteen years ago with a guy in New York who took a urinal and cleverly refashioned it into a fountain. Found art is created when odd, disparate, unlikely, even long-abandoned castoffs are put together with other similarly unexpected remnants to create something new and, if all goes as planned, lovely.

4. Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., ^ Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. 587-588

5. ^ Dodson, Donna (August 2021). "Interpreting the natural: contemporary visions of scholars' rocks". Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (CAET). 7 (1): 11-13. doi:10.15212/CAET/2021/7/1. S2CID 238719901. They embody the original impulse to elevate a found object to fine art status, not unlike a "readymade," where a commonplace artifact is viewed as art.

6. ^ Philippe, Dagen (10 May 2021). "Dix-neuf œuvres des Arts incohérents classées trésor national". Le Monde.

7. ^ Philippe, Dagen (3 February 2021). "17 œuvres des Arts incohérents : un trésor redécouvert dans une malle". Le Monde.

8. ^ Johann, Naldi (April 2022). Arts incohérents, discoveries and new perspectives. Paris: Lienart. pp. 164-183. ISBN 978-2-35906-366-0.

9. Duchamp, Marcel trans. and qtd. in ^ Gammel, Irene. Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002, 224.

10. Francis M. Naumann, ^ New York Dada, 1915-23 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), p. 239, note 17.

11. ^ "Tate Collection - The Handsome Pork-Butcher by Francis Picabia". Tate Gallery. 16 May 2011. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.

12. ^ Heath, Nicola (6 November 2022). "Australian artist Paul Yore speaks about censorship in art, queer culture and Catholic kitsch as ACCA exhibition surveys his career". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

13. ^ "Pablo Picasso's Bull's Head | A Magical Metamorphosis of the Ordinary | Masterpiece by Eric Gibson". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023.

"Found object" and "Readymade", defined by MOMA

"Found object" and "Readymade" defined by Tate

Betacourt, Michael: "The Richard Mutt Case: Looking for Marcel Duchamp's Fountain"

Thompson, Charles: "A Stuckist on Stuckism" (See section "The medium modifies the message")

den Arend, Lucien: "Environmental Art and Land Art as objet trouvé"

Iverson, Margaret: "Readymade, found object, photograph" - An extended examination of the subject

FAUND, paper magazine featuring internet image finders

"READYMADE" fan scarf remix knitting pattern by Schalalala

Hopkins, David, A Companion to Dada and Surrealism, Volume 10 of Blackwell Companions to Art History, John Wiley & Sons, May 2, 2016, ISBN 1118476182

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A found object (a calque from the French objet trouvé), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function.

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A plaster lobster has been attached to the receiver of a telephone; a slight modification has turned an everyday object into something ludicrous. An incessant showman, and outspoken member of the Surrealist group, Dalí promoted the idea of absurdity and the role of the unconscious in art. He also drew close analogies between food and sex, and in the current example he intentionally positioned the genitalia of the lobster in line with the mouthpiece of the receiver. Whilst he made a variety of Surrealist objects, the artist is best known for his meticulously worked paintings in which dream-like scenarios become unnervingly vivid. Dalí was also involved in the production of a number of films, working on projects with Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney. The artist produced several versions of the Lobster Telephone. The example below belonged to Dalí’s important English patron, Edward James.

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In het traditioneel theater ligt de kracht van objecten in hun verwijzende eigenschap in dienst van het verhaal. In het objecttheater verwijzen de voorwerpen ook naar het echte leven. Alleen hebben ze, net als in het poppentheater, een andere status. Ze zijn evenwaardig aan de acteur.

Volgens theaterwetenschapper Jean Luc Mattéoli is het objecttheater ontstaan in de jaren 80 bij de Franse gezelschappen Theatre de Cuisine, Theatre Manarf et Vélo Theatre (

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1881–1973

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Commodity sculpture is a variation of found art in which commercially manufactured objects are arranged as a sculpture.

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1944

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Haim Steinbach: Objects, Commodity Products, or Art Have Functions For Us That Are Not Unlike Words

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Haim Steinbach, Display #31G - An Offering: Collectibles of Ellen and Michael Ringier, Kunsthalle Zurich, 2014 Producing an extraordinary body of work throughout his impressive forty year career, Haim Steinbach has redefined the status of the object in art through his continued investigation into what constitutes art objects and the ways in which they are...Continue reading →

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A specific subgenre of found objects is known as trash art or junk art.[19] These works primarily comprise components that have been discarded. Often they come quite literally from the trash.

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Art is Trash – is an anti-hero costume that I use for painting on abandoned objects in the streets to freely criticize everything that aversions me and worries me. Everything I do on the streets is radically SPONTANEOUS, accidental and instinctive. All my inspiration is based on my mood. The intention is to paint quickly and without academic technicalities to leave a simple and clear message to the citizen.

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Art is Trash - Francisco de Pajaro - VICE Magazine Interview 2016

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Born: 1988 (age 36 years), Melbourne, Australia

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It’s well-documented that Yore uses found objects in his installations. Often, these objects come from op shops, though in his earlier career Yore made even more economical use of materials found on the street or otherwise sourced for free. Yore understands the histories of these objects as woven into their materiality, from their surfaces right down to their chemical composition. Crocheted blankets feature heavily in SEEING IS BELIEVING BUT FEELING IS THE TRUTH, some of which are still laden with the dog or cat hair they’ve acquired in their last homes. He’s also conscious of the embroilment of these objects with histories of extraction – especially in the case of plastics, made from oil – and of the labour that produces them in their early lives as commodities, before they become owned domestic objects, and finally make their way to him as post-consumer material.

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TAMTAM objektentheater has been making visual theatre with found objects as main characters since 1979. Image based performances, usually without text. Small and large productions that are a crossover between theatre, visual arts, video and music. A very personal and peculiar style of object art in which objects, materials, light, sound, music, inventive stage-technology and decor tell the story.

TAMTAM’s theatre performances move between theatre and visual arts. It is therefore not surprising that Gérard Schiphorst and Marije van der Sande also make visual art with found objects. Often their work has a high level of theatricality where the performance has come to a standstill and goes on in the imagination of the viewer. Some of the works on display are still for sale.

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TAMTAM objektentheater - TAMTAM objektentheater

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TAMTAM objektentheater has been making visual theatre with found objects as main characters since 1979. Image based performances, usually without text. Small and large productions that are a crossover between theatre, visual arts, video and music. A very personal and peculiar style of object art in which objects, materials, light, sound, music, inventive stage-technology and decor tell the story.

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HIT SONGS OF 2014 - PERFORMED WITH HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

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HIT SONGS OF 2014 - PERFORMED WITH HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

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HIT SONGS OF 2014 - PERFORMED WITH HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

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Wat maakt het dan kunst? Het object wordt gebruikt om de discussie te starten

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Ik heb een fascinatie met het alledaagse. In mijn raster onderzoek ga ik dit koppelen aan de wereld van kunst. Kunst voelt soms als iets voor de elite, rijke en mensen die boven de standaarden zijn. En vroeger was dit ook zo. Misschien nu nogsteeds wel. Ik hou zelf van contrasten aan elkaar verbinden in mijn eigen werk. Iets kinderlijks koppelen aan een zwaar thema, iets totaal niet menselijks, menselijk maken en dus ook als een alledaags object wordt ingezet voor kunst.

ONDERZOEK naar Kunst waarbij objecten die normaal niet gebruikt worden om kunst mee te maken, vanwege een niet kunstige functie, ingezet worden om kunst mee te maken.

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New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris. Dadaist activities lasted until the mid 1920s.

According to Hans Richter Dada was not art: it was "anti-art".[21] Dada represented the opposite of everything which art stood for. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend.

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One of the first Ready made art pieces

Ready made Art 1915: Term to describe art made with a common object that had been selected and not materially altered in any way

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The Lost and Found Orchestra 2012 Brighton

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http://www.sophiezimmerman.nl/print/muziek-in-alledaagse-dingen

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Difference in Found Object & Ready made Art

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Difference in Found Object & Ready made Art

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As part of that greater conversation, the objet trouvé was understood to be a raw material used in an assemblage in a way that called attention to its real material qualities and inherent aesthetic. Taking this idea one step further, Duchamp's readymades invented a new category of artworks composed entirely out of manufactured, pre-made objects that stood on their own as autonomous works of art.

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There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the ‘useful’ function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it ‘a new thought’, a new meaning. Duchamp’s readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist. Choosing the object is itself a creative act, cancelling out the useful function of the object makes it art, and its presentation in the gallery gives it a new meaning. This move from artist-as-maker to artist-as-chooser is often seen as the beginning of the movement to conceptual art, as the status of the artist and the object are called into question. At the time, the readymade was seen as an assault on the conventional understanding not only of the status of art but its very nature.

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Born: July 28, 1887, Blainville-Crevon, France

Died: October 2, 1968 (age 81 years), Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

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Hotel Modern werd opgericht in 1997 in Rotterdam. De artistieke kernleden zijn actrices Arlène Hoornweg en Pauline Kalker en beeldend kunstenaar en performer Herman Helle. Zij werken regelmatig samen met de componisten Arthur Sauer en Ruud van der Pluijm. Het gezelschap won vele prijzen, waaronder de Erik Vos Prijs, de Europese Prix de Coppet, de VSCD Mimeprijs en de Wim Meilink Oeuvreprijs. Hotel Modern toert over de hele wereld; speelt haar voorstellingen van Parijs tot Milaan en van New York tot Tokio.

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De evocatieve kracht van objecten in het objecttheater

Het objecttheater heeft een aantal kenmerken. De voorwerpen zijn er huiselijk en ze worden niet tot leven gebracht zoals in het poppentheater. De theatermakers uit dit genre gebruiken de immobiliteit en evocatieve kracht van objecten om onze waarneming te prikkelen en onze relatie met dagelijkse voorwerpen centraal te stellen. Het is theater met een museale karakter, een oefening in kijken. Banaan en Oestermes van Hotel Modern is daar een goed voorbeeld van.

In het traditionele dramatisch theater worden objecten gebruikt als accessoire of decor. Stel, er staat een kleine designtafel op het podium bedekt met een chique uitziend kunststof tafelkleed waarop een gouden spiegel, een gouden kam en een zakdoek zijn neergezet naast een asbak vol opgerookte sigaretten. Het zou de kamer van een moderne Desdemona uit Othello kunnen voorstellen of een slaapkamer uit een stuk van een moderne Tsjechov of Molière. De combinatie van voorwerpen uit het tafereel is realistisch en op menselijke schaal. De objecten zeggen iets over de sociale klasse en geslacht van personages, de historische context van het stuk en wellicht de tijdstip van de dag. Ze geven de toeschouwer aanwijzingen over het waar, wanneer en wie uit het toneelstuk. Ze verwijzen naar de echte wereld buiten het theater en staan in de fictieve wereld daarom als hulpmiddel. Ze maken het spel van de acteurs herkenbaar en geloofwaardig en zijn aan hen ondergeschikt: het zijn de acteurs/personages die in het middelpunt van de vertelling staan. In het traditioneel theater ligt de kracht van objecten in hun verwijzende eigenschap in dienst van het verhaal.

Evenwaardig aan acteurs

In het objecttheater verwijzen de voorwerpen ook naar het echte leven. Alleen hebben ze, net als in het poppentheater, een andere status. Ze zijn evenwaardig aan de acteur. Met elkaar delen ze het spel als personage, metafoor of beeld. Wanneer in Banaan en Oestermes de actrice Pauline Kalker in haar ene hand een pot knakworst met een aardappel erop omhoog houdt en in haar andere hand een blik asperges met een tennisbal, kijken we als toeschouwer gefascineerd en geamuseerd naar de vreemde objectencombinatie. Ook kijken we naar de actrice die met volle concentratie de voorwerpen probeert neer te zetten zonder ze te laten vallen. Onze focus is afwisselend gericht op de acteur en de objecten.

Een tweede leven

Volgens theaterwetenschapper Jean Luc Mattéoli is het objecttheater ontstaan in de jaren 80 bij de Franse gezelschappen Theatre de Cuisine, Theatre Manarf et Vélo Theatre (1). Voor deze makers is het ensceneren van objecten in het theater een aanklacht tegen de consumptiemaatschappij en de invasie van Europa door producten made in China. Het objectentheater heeft in dat opzicht een politiek karakter. De geënsceneerde voorwerpen zijn vooral huiselijke, uit het echte leven geplukt, alledaagse dingen die iedereen kent. Ze komen uit onze keukens, zolders, grootmoeders kasten, speelgoed- en gereedschapskisten. Ze zijn door de kunstenaars in tweedehandswinkels en op rommelmarkten gekocht. Mattéoli duidt ze aan als objet pauvre, arme object. Hun economische waarde is nihil.
In tegenstelling tot poppen in het poppentheater -die gemaakt zijn voor de voorstelling- zijn de objecten in het objecttheater readymade. Eenmaal in het theater beland zijn ze van de afvalbak en de vergetelheid gered. Verlost van hun utilitaire functie krijgen ze een poëtische rol op het podium, een tweede leven. Een leven aan voorwerpen toekennen impliceert een andere manier om naar de dingen om ons heen te kijken. Objecten krijgen een geschiedenis, een biografie. Bij deze benadering worden ze niet meer als verwerpproducten beschouwd omdat ze snel nutteloos en uit de mode worden geacht. Ze materialiseren de manier waarop de mens zich tot de wereld der dingen verhoudt: in voorwerpen kristalliseert zich onze relatie met esthetiek, met techniek en met onze geschiedenis uit (2). Voorwerpen worden opgewaardeerd.

Evocatieve eigenschap

Maar ze belanden niet zomaar op het podium. Ze worden voor hun theatercarrière zorgvuldig uitgekozen. Voor Christian Carrignon van Theatre de Cuisine moeten de objecten geladen zijn. Ze moeten al gebruikt zijn, geïmpregneerd door hun eerste leven. Dan pas kunnen ze herinneringen en associaties oproepen bij de toeschouwer (3). En het gaat niet alleen om het oproepen van persoonlijke gedachten ook de culturele referenties van de voorwerpen zijn belangrijk. Wanneer in Banaan en Oestermes acteur en beeldend kunstenaar Herman Helle aaiend een opgezet reetje opbrengt denk ik enerzijds aan een knuffel en anderzijds aan de jacht. Die gedachten staan lijnrecht tegenover elkaar. Als hij daarna het diertje met rollen WC papier versiert staat de zeldzaamheid van het beestje tegenover de banaliteit van de WC rol. Het spanningsveld die daarmee wordt gecreëerd is lachwekkend.
De betekenis die wij voorwerpen toekennen en die wij als gemeenschap met elkaar delen is wat de objecten geladen maakt. Objecten zijn de reservoirs van ons collectief geheugen. Het objecttheater gebruikt hun evocatieve eigenschappen en buit ze uit.

Niet tot leven gebracht

Die evocatieve eigenschap wordt des te sterker omdat de voorwerpen niet als antropomorfische wezens worden gemanipuleerd. We worden als toeschouwer niet misleid door de illusie dat het object leeft. Het objecttheater zet meestal onbeweeglijkheid in om het emotioneel en cultureel geheugen van de toeschouwer aan te spreken en te prikkelen. In Banaan en Oestermes brengen de drie acteurs allerlei voorwerpen op die zij op sokkels verspreid in de ruimte neerzetten. Een afwasborstel, een scheerkwast, een inpakdoos van Puma, een oorlogshelm, een pak waspoeder, opgezette dieren, een zwarte veer, een grote zeeschelp en nog veel meer: het gaat hier puur om de objecten zelf. De setting heeft iets van een museum. Het doet denken aan het werk van Marcel Duchamp die readymade tot kunst verhief door ze simpelweg in een museum tentoon te stellen. In Banaan en Oestermes vallen de plastische eigenschappen van de dingen op: hun vorm, kleuren en materiaal en ook hun functionele, iconische en symbolische karakter.

Algoritmes en beeldrijmen

In de voorstelling van Hotel Modern maken de drie acteurs steeds nieuwe objectensamenstellingen. Daarin dagen zij elkaar zichtbaar uit. Voor de toeschouwer lijken de vaak grappige combinaties net zo willekeurig als die van een digitale zoekmachine. Waarom worden een bloemkool, een witte bal en een aardappel bij elkaar gebracht? Wat hebben een scheerkwast, een potje met een cactus en een wc-rol met een bloemkool erop gemeen? Soms hebben de handelingen van de acteurs iets van verkooppraktijken. Na een tijdje valt het je op. De acteurs associëren met beelden, 'beeldrijmen' als het ware op de plastische eigenschappen van de voorwerpen (kleuren, materialen en vormen) en op hun evocatieve waarde (betekenis en culturele connotaties). Als de objecten dezelfde kleur of vorm hebben, zijn daarentegen de combinaties ervan evocatief gezien vaak ongebruikelijk. Een opgezette eend en een fles schoonmaakproduct voor toiletpot hebben niet alleen dezelfde vorm, op de fles schoonmaakmiddel staat ook het woord 'wc-eend'. De ene is exclusief, de andere banaal.
Met Pauline Kalker spreek ik over het maakproces van de voorstelling. Ze vertelt dat Herman Helle in zijn atelier al lang een heleboel bijzondere voorwerpen uit de collectie van zijn familie (overgrootouders, opa's en oma's) bewaarde. Die objecten wilde hij ooit een plek geven op het toneel. Na veel voorstellingen te hebben gemaakt op basis van historische gegevens wilden zij nu iets maken zonder anekdotisch verhaal. Banaan en Oestermes is uit een aantal ingrediënten geconstrueerd, legt Pauline Kalker uit. Eén daarvan is de manier waarop een zoekmachine als YouTube associërend de gebruiker leidt van het ene filmpje naar het andere. Het idee van algoritmes wilden de acteurs op toneel brengen. Zo is onder andere het toneelbeeld met alle dozen ontstaan. Herman Helles voorwerpen kwamen in dit concept goed van pas.

Van mens naar mensobjecten

In de loop van de voorstelling wordt de sfeer steeds grimmiger. Naast de dode dieren komen ook doodskopen tevoorschijn in een spel tussen levend en niet-levende materie. Dat gebruikelijke thema uit het poppentheater is in Banaan en Oestermes ook aanwezig. Maar wat ik er vooral zag is de verschuiving van mens naar mensobject. Langzamerhand worden de twee actrices steeds meer objecten. Ze krijgen naast uitvergrote maskers en kostuums ook kunststofledenmaten en ademslangen. Op blokken neergezet verbeelden ze een hybride vorm tussen mens en object. Is dat de toekomst verbeeld? Ik moest sterk denken aan de huidige maatschappelijke discussie over de posthumane mens en de kruisbestuiving tussen mens en robots.
Op reis door tijd en ruimte.

Sinds de jaren 80 heeft het objectentheater uiteenlopende vormen aangenomen. Desondanks blijven, naar mijn idee, bij het huidige objectentheater een aantal oorspronkelijke kenmerken overeind. In Banaan en Oestermes zijn de meeste voorwerpen als objet pauvre te duiden. De objecten zijn geladen door hun culturele referenties. Ze worden aan het publiek getoond maar niet tot leven gebracht. Bewegingsloos zetten ze de hersenen van de toeschouwers aan het werk: als toeschouwer moet je het verhaal zelf maken door onbevangen en nieuwsgierig te kijken. En je reist door tijd en ruimte. Bij iedere sokkel zoom je als toeschouwer in op het ontstaan van vervreemdende stillevens die de drie acteurs zorgvuldig opbouwen. En als je uitzoomt en het uitzicht op alle stillevens krijgt, openbaart zich een verrassend universum met een heldere beeldende rangschikking.

In dat opzicht maak je een denkbeeldige ruimtelijke reis mee. Tevens reis je door je eigen (culturele) associaties, van de weerzinwekkendheid van opgezette dode dieren, de kortstondigheid van wegwerpdingen tot de banaliteit van verpakkingen. Huiselijke voorwerpen worden beeldende kunst. Uiteindelijk reis je via het aanschouwen van opgezette dode dieren tot mensobjecten door verleden, heden en toekomst. Ik vond het prachtig.

(1) L'objet pauvre, Mattéoli Jean-Luc, Presses universitaires de Rennes, (2011)
(2) La vie des objets, BONNOT Thierry, Paris, Maison des sciences de l'homme, (2002)
(3) A la recherche du théâtre d'objet, Christian Carrignon en Jean Luc Mattéoli, Editions Themaa (2009)

zomer 2018

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De evocatieve kracht van objecten in het objecttheater

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Vuur, de eeuwige kringloop van oorlog en vrede

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Vuur, de eeuwige kringloop van oorlog en vrede

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Many people use found sounds to make music. These sounds are from the world around us. They can be anything - a ball hitting the floor, a pedestrian crossing or a lift door opening and closing.

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Meet the musicians who hunt for sound outside the studio, creating radical new interpretations from the diverse material they discover.

Nick Zammuto lives in southern Vermont, somewhere up in the mountains. When he and his wife bought their property, the only buildings on the 16 acres of land were a tumbledown shack and an old tractor shed, but they had a plan. They fixed the shack up, turning it into the ideal place to raise kids; a picture-perfect house nestled in the field like a chocolate in a box.

However, it's the tractor shed that's the most interesting thing on Zammuto's property. These days, rather than just being an old tractor shed, it has been transformed into a music studio - a self-contained little building with a gently sloping roof, a thick woodpile along one side, and plant boxes by the door. Walk up to it, winding your way through the long grass, and you might notice a set of PVC pipes cut to different lengths and stacked by the door.

Each of these pipes, Zammuto says, is tuned to a specific pitch. In a YouTube video that he made, he deliberately scratches a record at key points, creating something like a very basic, glitchy drum loop. He plays it out through a speaker, putting one of the pipes between it and the mic, and turning the sound into a beautifully tuned piece of music.

Inside the studio, you'll find guitars, drums, computers and all the sprawling paraphernalia of modern recording. But you'll also find a stack of VHS tapes, which Zammuto has been picking up from thrift shops for years and is slowly digitising, creating a massive library of obscure and weird samples.

As you may have guessed, Zammuto's music is a little bit unusual. Formerly a member of the experimental duo The Books, he and his band now make music that draws heavily on what's commonly known as found sound (think about found art) - sounds created by everyday objects, which are recorded, warped and twisted to suit the needs of the musician. "It's the way I think of things," Zammuto says. "When I first started, I was coming out of the visual arts, and I knew nothing about music. I started making sculptures that had a sound component to them, and I had to document them somehow. I fell in love with sound as a sculptural medium; working with little bits and pieces and knitting them together felt much more natural than trying to record a band."

Using found sound in songs is nothing new - rappers have been using voicemail messages to break up tracks since the days of De La Soul - but in the past few years, there has been a fresh wave of musicians eager to experiment with it. British electronica duo Mount Kimbie, according to writer Aimee Cliff, created music out of the sound of skateboarders, thrown stones and the ambience of a church. Similarly, producer Lukid has drawn on the sound of bus journeys, and there are dozens of others creating music that is usually experimental, often deeply, deeply weird, but always intriguing.

In Rian Johnson's superb Sci-Fi film Looper, he tapped his cousin Nathan to record the soundtrack. Nathan responded by making a score almost entirely out of found sound; fan belts, crashing metal and angle grinders became the basis for custom-built instruments. The result was unreal - a score that sounded like nothing that had come before it. If you're looking for proof that gifted composers can take absolutely anything and make it sing, that's it right there.

Take Daniele Sciolla. The Italian composer has been using found sounds for years, trekking across Europe to get unusual bits of audio. For his amazing track Oldroom, Sciolla says that, in addition to a synth and an old guitar, he travelled to Fribourg in Switzerland, returning with the sounds of computer fans and traffic lights, and plenty of vocal samples. Once he'd mixed all of these together, back at home base, he had come up with something wonderfully unique. These are the type of sounds that innovate and push music forward.

Sciolla and Zammuto exist because it's easier than ever for them to do what they do. With technology becoming cheaper, musicians no longer have to use complex recording rigs to do this. You can go out with an iPhone and come back with a good set of sounds, although both musicians have reasonably high quality rigs. For Zammuto, part of the attraction comes from the fact that these are sounds that clearly have a purpose, and which had a life outside of music. He says: "I love sounds that feel alive. There is this almost chaotic element that I'm drawn to in music, where time has changed the original in some way. I love the idea of the passage of time, and sound wearing down with it in some way."

Like any part of music, found sounds come with their own unique set of challenges; it's rare for a studio musician to have to risk life and limb to record, say, the sound of a lump of sodium being thrown into a swimming pool. However, there are other things to think about and take into consideration, too. Let's say you're looking for a sample online - a kick drum, perhaps. You have instant access to millions upon millions of kick drums, some of which are paid for and others that are free. You're completely spoilt for choice, with neither the time nor possibly the inclination to pick the best one. You might think that having to go out and track down good found sounds simplifies this problem, because you're limiting yourself creatively to what you can find. Well, that's not the case. When absolutely every object on the planet, big or small, makes some sort of sound, finding a good or unusual one can be a very difficult task.

"It's a pretty big world, and there's a lot out there to record," says Ric Viers. The Detroit sound engineer might not be a musician exactly, but when it comes to recording found sounds, he's probably the most knowledgeable person on earth. As head of Blastwave FX, Viers has personally recorded hundreds of thousands of sounds in the field, and written two books on the subject. He knows all too well that getting a really good piece of found sound takes time and practice. "Anything and everything can be used to make sound. I've been recording for a long time," he says, "and even I get stuck in patterns and ruts and routines, and default to the same sources for different things.

Viers continues: "We listen with our ears, and not with our eyes. Whenever we're in a store - and my wife was making fun of me about this yesterday - I'm always touching things. I will usually walk up to something - any object - and shake it with the full intention of trying to get a sense of what it sounds like."

Simply recording sounds is only the start. You have to take them back to the studio and work out what the Hell to do with them. "I think it's easy to record sound outside the studio," says Sciolla, "but you need some musical knowledge to work with it. You have to fix it in a track ... choose the right frequencies, the right pitch, select the best sample."

The odd thing is that, despite these problems, music is an ideal place for found sounds to be used. When he's recording effects for his libraries, Viers has to make sure that they're clean. He has no control over where they'll be used, and a producer who drops one into a session won't want other sounds cluttering that nice metallic clang they've picked out. But for people like Zammuto and Sciolla, sounds don't have to be clean. They can have imperfections, and grit, and noise. It gives them character. It gives them what Zammuto calls dirt - something he says he loves.

Viers echoes this: "The effects you record are going to end up buried under all the other instruments. When I record, I have to make sure everything is clean and pristine because it's going to be naked in a sound effects library. With a song, you can get away with murder."

In many ways, this is a movement that is only just getting started. When there are literally billions of sounds out there in the wide world just waiting to be recorded and manipulated, it won't be long before musicians start to look outside of the studio for their next fix. Actually, scratch that "won't be long" bit. It's already happening now and it's incredible.

For further information on the artists mentioned, visit www.ricviers.com, www.zammutosound.com, and www.soundcloud.com/danielesciolla.
Rob Boffard

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Nick Zammuto lives in southern Vermont, somewhere up in the mountains. When he and his wife bought their property, the only buildings on the 16 acres of land were a tumbledown shack and an old tractor shed, but they had a plan.