Playing Cubes Revisited

Playing Cubes was one of my favourite things to come out of my art practice in 2019. The concept for this piece came about in March. The cubes started their lives as paper cubes and then fabric cubes before becoming the plaster cubes that I considered a finished piece.

The name of the piece came from the notion of games and playing, as influenced by Dadaism (and children’s playing cubes). The intention was also that the language used within the title would let the audience know that the work was intended to be interacted with.

My art practice takes a DIY approach, making use of materials which are often inexpensive (Vam, 2017) and using processes that are easily accessible (Benjamin, 2015). The process of making the cubes took a few weeks, as I work on a small scale and have a DIY ethos, the production is much slower than something that is mass produced. It was also important to me that the cubes where note simply re-produced (on a production line). By handcrafting each cube my multiples to retain the quality of being an original, this is important as it means that the aura of the original is not lost (Benjamin, 2015, p.70). each cube is an individual, with its own aesthetic. They are 'originals', which are multiples of sorts (Judovitz, 1998). As they are assembled of pre-existing gestures and conventions.

The process to create each plaster cube is as followed; each cube is set in a handmade 5x5x5cm paper cube, lined with petroleum jelly and then filled with hand mixed plaster. They are then left to dry. The process was a simple one, but effective. There was something quite ritualistic about it, as I followed the processes. The number of cubes created was not pre-set, each time I unwrapped the new cubes and added them to the existing pile of complete cubes I felt compelled to create more. The process only stopped once had submitted them to the Colchester Art Society Summer Exhibition, as at this point the work felt ‘done’. Had I not submitted the work for exhibition it is entirely possible I would still be making plaster cubes now.

The focus of my practice is the use of a shared public language, this resulted in the addition of the lettering to the playing cubes. Etching of the letters into the cubes was labour intensive and time consuming, with each hand carved into the set plaster, utilising my own font, ACcomplete4. The letter choice was random as did not have any preconceived ideas of a word or phrase. Instead wanting the audience to interacted with them–played with them. The cubes play into notions of breaking up language (Deleuze, 1997), as they use linguistic units (Katamba and Kerswill, 2009), rather than pre-set text.  They also allow us to consider how we make sense of things (Peirce, 1931-58), the work allows the audience to make their own sense of language.

Due to the gallery context in which the Playing Cubes where exhibited in I am unsure how much playing went on with the cubes. Galleries are highly controlled spaces (O’Doherty, 1986), in which we usually just look at work.

I am now revisiting the cubes in conjunction with The Road Sign Collection. I have decided to revisit the cubes as there is something pleasing in their simplicity, I also want to explore the notion of play more as I go forward. Currently I have returned to the paper cubes, however I may experiment with other materials going forward. These cubes remain the same size as the originals, but going forward I want to explore increased scale, as the road signs used for inspiration are large.

Reference

Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. London: Penguin.

Deleuze, G. (1997) Essays Critical and Clinical. University of Minnesota Press.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press. 

Katamba, F. and Kerswill, P. (2009) English Language: Description, Variation and Context. Palgrave; 2009 edition. 

O’Doherty, B. (1986) Inside the White Cube. University of California Press.

Peirce, C. S. (1931-58): Collected Writings (8 Vols.). Ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss & Arthur W Burks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Vam. (2017) Plywood: Material of the Modern World. [online] https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/plywood-material-of-the-modern-world. [accessed 02/01/20].