IN-PERSON: Learning. Life. Work

Abstract

The readymade was developed by Marcel Duchamp early in the twentieth century. As an art-historical concept there is a plethora of research and writing on his productions and inventions related to this notion, in addition to other artists and designers’ relationship to this idea and methodology. As a device for engaging students in the creation of novel designed projects, the literature is sparse. Over the course of the past three academic years, I employed the readymade, or found object, in a series of courses to engage with students in the creative process of developing new expressive and dynamic visual designs directly related to interiority and spatial expression. Specifically, in both the Spring of 2022 and 2024 semesters, for Foundation interior design courses, students were empowered and facilitated to discover the readymade in their own lives, whether these were objects in their homes or cars, or elsewhere, so that they could experiment with these materials of their everyday lives. These objects were first brought into the studio classroom, and then photographed and studied so that they could develop these images through a particular set of processes related to certain principles of art and design and build a series of creative interpretations of their discoveries. The principles that the students were given the opportunity to explore were balance, symmetry, direction, emphasis, unity, repetition, white space, variety, proportion (scale), contrast, economy, rhythm, hierarchy, pattern, movement, and similarity. Students were then able to investigate and connect the concept of the readymade and examine possibilities for creative consideration through 2D processes generated from the 3D found objects focused through the lenses of the principles of art and design, after parsing these images. This process, a creative and inspired exploratory and experimental reformulation and procedural restructuring was one of discovery, and dreamlike analysis and synthesis.