Working with the ‘Found Object’ continued:
Following on from discussing the relationship between money and drinking as a coping mechanism, I began thinking: how else do we ‘cope’?
I thought extensively about my own coping strategies and discussed with my parents and friends. Soon, I realised that communication and talking with the people you love are extremely important ways to cope and deal with the world.
Representing communication in this socially-distanced world is a found battery-less Nokia 130 (mobile phone). Like the coins previously, this handset was cleaned before use to remove any forensic association with particular individuals:
I then considered what happens when communication breaks down, when people isolate themselves and communication is not being used to ‘cope’.
Following the idea from last week, this Nokia 130 was then submerged in a glass of water. The glass used is a generic Ikea drinking glass:
The distortion of the phone in the water affects how the keypad is visible, making some of the number appear to repeat themselves, as well as completely ruining the electrics of the phone – rendering it useless:
I then decided to place the glass with the phone alongside the glass containing the coins (which are beginning to go rusty) on the found shelf.:
The idea was to demonstrate the breakdown of coping mechanisms and how one (drinking) can affect another (communication and talking) very seriously. The phone and the money exist almost side by side but are prevented from interacting through these transparent layers of glass and water.
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