Materiality – What are the differences between physically and conceptually using materials? Give examples of this and how the two ideas might intersect.
Physically using materials involves the tangible materials, such as the shape, texture, and weight of the materials.
For example, cardboard is a material that is accessible and malleable and used a lot in project prototypes. In “The Art of Cardboard”, Zimmer explained the characteristics of cardboards in “affordability, availability, sustainability, and forgiving nature” and people who uses cardboards are allowed to have freedom of doing what they want and “unafraid of messing up the results”.
Conceptually using materials focuses on the ideas and meaning behind the material, include their social, cultural, or historical background.
For example, in many environmental art, artists use plastic and unsustainable materials that calls for environmental awareness. Though they are using the materials, but these materials are oftentimes on the contrary to their concepts.
These two concepts might intersect when the artist uses the materials to convey their point. In Richard Serra used massive curved steel pieces in his Torqued Ellipses installations. Physically, the huge steel walls of the sculpture alters audiences’ movement in the gallery as it allows them to enter the sculpture. Conceptually, it alters the sense of space and time for the viewers.
Ran and I worked together as a pair and explored Balance and Texture through rocks, iron wires, yarn, soft tubes, foam, and eggshells:
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGRjiO9um4/2xgLsKJ85ig6FSTHEj4CKQ/edit
We learned that we need three transformed objects, so we remade a few objects using paper mache with paper towels, corn starch, flour, and water: