Surveying Devices

A Lone Walking Stick; A Walking Stick for Two to Negotiate; A Walking Stick for Five to Walk a Fine Line; Three Ladders = One High Chair

This body of work takes inspiration from the oil painting Wanderer Above the Mist by Caspar David Friedrich in c.1818, where a wanderer stood on the edge of a precipice armed with a walking stick as he looked out at the world beyond engulfed in thick fog. The message conveyed was said to be one of Kantian self-reflection, representing the metaphorical gaze into the unknown. While the landscape in which we lived in have since evolved tremendously, our desire to wander and wonder remains innate.

In these works, I seek to mirror the grids that define our cityscapes of today, a network of horizontal and perpendicular lines, like the Cartesian system of coordinates. Simultaneously centrifugal and centripetal, our attention is drawn both inwards and outwards, to our sense of self and the world outside of ourselves, without coming to a point of rest or closure.

For instance, while Three Ladders and a High Chair serves as a platform to view our surroundings from a point of elevation, the table is also ironically turned on the viewer who is situated at a vulnerable position to be observed by everyone. With playful reverence, I manifest the tension in power relations through interactive instruments that would not only heighten our sense of self and others but also question our assumptions and known conventions.

 

Inquiry Process

|| Dorathy Lye