Commonplace Design
Commonplace_Cabinet6
Cabinet of the (Material & Virtual) World, Commonplace (2009)
The objects to which we ascribe meaning are central in determining our place in the world. However, in our contemporary society ‘things of meaning’ can no longer be solely placed within the physical realm. This cabinet brings together both the material and virtual worlds with sixteen drawers for physical archiving on one face and sixteen corresponding engraved patterns linking to digital data on the other.
Each pattern is a unique universal (data matrix) barcode which can be decoded to allow the user’s meaningful data (i.e. digital photos, videos) to pop up when interfaced though a camera phone or computer. Although each code is permanently engraved, the digital content that is linked to each pattern can be easily changed, rearranged, or updated via a website.
This project is an ongoing investigation based on the historical cabinets of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Throughout the Renaissance, objects representative of god (naturalia) and man (artificialia) were displayed in cabinets as an index of their proprietors’ world view. This cabinet borrows the structure of the cabinets of the past, but instead frames a contemporary context. Since we are no longer concerned with the dichotomy of nature and art, but with the duality of the material and the virtual, this cabinet brings together both physical and digital space in one archival system.
Commonplace_Cabinet6
Cabinet of the (Material & Virtual) World, Commonplace (2009)
The objects to which we ascribe meaning are central in determining our place in the world. However, in our contemporary society ‘things of meaning’ can no longer be solely placed within the physical realm. This cabinet brings together both the material and virtual worlds with sixteen drawers for physical archiving on one face and sixteen corresponding engraved patterns linking to digital data on the other.
Each pattern is a unique universal (data matrix) barcode which can be decoded to allow the user’s meaningful data (i.e. digital photos, videos) to pop up when interfaced though a camera phone or computer. Although each code is permanently engraved, the digital content that is linked to each pattern can be easily changed, rearranged, or updated via a website.
This project is an ongoing investigation based on the historical cabinets of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Throughout the Renaissance, objects representative of god (naturalia) and man (artificialia) were displayed in cabinets as an index of their proprietors’ world view. This cabinet borrows the structure of the cabinets of the past, but instead frames a contemporary context. Since we are no longer concerned with the dichotomy of nature and art, but with the duality of the material and the virtual, this cabinet brings together both physical and digital space in one archival system.