Blue section
A xenograft is a procedure where cells, tissue or organs are transplanted from one specie to another. Yet the species don't have to be the same. For example, doctors in Brazil have been experimenting with using tilapia fish skin to treat burns. The fish skin has disease resistance levels comparable to human skin and can aid in healing. Another common example is using pig heart valves in humans.
Anyway, xenograft is a type of skin graft and skin grafts are a common plastic surgery procedure. Plastic surgery is hit and miss. it will either be what you wanted it to be or it is a botched job. Because of how the human who goes under the knife is basically getting mutilated to change their appearance, I wanted to explore how I could do as such to a product but in a conceptual way of thinking.
The conceptual thinking will involve using the words from the blue section and the product that I will be mutilating will eventually come from exploring these words.
The conceptual thinking will involve using the words from the blue section and the product that I will be mutilating will eventually come from exploring these words.
First of all C. R . lane is a furniture company based in North Carolina that specializes in custom upholstered pieces. They use a number of materials that are customizable but all are meant to be of the highest quality. The company can be described as being prosperous by how they have such an abundance of material. The wide range of good quality material they offer also includes natural leather. The leather comes from cowhides. I included C. R . lane into the section because the way that they offer various choices on customizing furniture reminded me of the xenograft procedure and also because the leather is cow skin, reminding me of human skin.
The piece of furniture that I will be mutilating into a new form will come from this company. Yet I didn't want to pick a random piece, therefore I looked for ways in which I could pick a piece with actual more meaning.
The piece of furniture that I will be mutilating into a new form will come from this company. Yet I didn't want to pick a random piece, therefore I looked for ways in which I could pick a piece with actual more meaning.
As it happens, there is a place called prosperity in South Carolina. If I use its area code which is 803,839 I could select a piece of furniture by its numerical code that would be the in-between the number of the area code. so basically the furniture piece would have the code number between 803 and 839. But I still haven't figured out what type of furniture.
while researching furniture pieces that have been influenced by plastic furniture I came across a piece called the naga baba armchair.
Hypebeast an online magazine wrote an article on it which states:
''the anthropomorphic furniture piece is a contrast to society’s idea of fit and skinny women, acting as a metaphor for the alterations in both perception and handling of the desired body. Embroidered arrows and magnified stitching are patterned to a plastic surgeon’s sketches on a patient’s body, indicating where to “fix” the “undesirable” parts of the body.''
while researching furniture pieces that have been influenced by plastic furniture I came across a piece called the naga baba armchair.
Hypebeast an online magazine wrote an article on it which states:
''the anthropomorphic furniture piece is a contrast to society’s idea of fit and skinny women, acting as a metaphor for the alterations in both perception and handling of the desired body. Embroidered arrows and magnified stitching are patterned to a plastic surgeon’s sketches on a patient’s body, indicating where to “fix” the “undesirable” parts of the body.''
The armchair also gained inspiration from a previous piece called Maestà Sofferente (Suffering Majesty) by Gaetano Pesce. but this also gained influence from Pesce earlier work called the la mama chair which was an armchair and ottoman joined together. At this point, I decided that the piece I will be mutilating will be an armchair and an ottoman. Only thing is, is that C.R. Lane doesn't do the two together so I'll have to pick separately.
Left: Naga baba armchair Middle: Maestà Soffrente Right: La mama chair
After deciding on what chair and ottoman I will be using I needed to start exploring how I could use the words in the section to mutilate the furniture pieces. So mutilation would mean to change its appearance. Therefore this links to plastic surgery but how I could find links between plastic surgery and c.r.lane. While I was going over their site I became interested in the idea of how they display different parts of the hide and how it may look on different sections of the furniture. At this point, a film popped into my head that I had seen previously called the silence of the lambs. In the film, there is a serial killer called buffalo bill. He got this nickname because he would ''skin the humps'' of his victims. I know this sounds odd and seems strange to place it in the section but there is more to it. The serial killer would place moths in the victims' mouths to let people know that he was obsessed with the idea of changing his appearance. Much like how a moth goes under metamorphosis so caterpillar to moth. Therefore there is a connection with plastic surgery because ultimately the serial killer wants to change his appearance (by using the skin from the victims) into a more beautiful form such as the caterpillar to moth. This also can refer to people who have facelifts and nose jobs etc. So this new form is meant to be more beautiful and this links to C.R. lane as well. By how the company is focused primarily on style, comfort and colour hence the idea of appearance is more important than material and that is why they may be willing to use natural leather in their products (note, this only an assumption).
Moths can represent transformation (mutilation is an aggressive form of transformation) or rebirth after death. Moths are known for their wings and they display various colours but if a moth was an omen for rebirth after death then what role would their wings symbolise. By looking at different cultures to find out what wings symbolise but with the idea of transformation I came across the Viking punishment blood eagle. Vikings believe that when they die they will go to Valhalla where they will feast, fight, die and be reborn in Valhalla once again as a continuous cycle. a blood eagle was a punishment where the victim would have their ribs cut apart and their lungs pulled out to look like wings. I included this in the section because it could symbolise how plastic surgery could go wrong and be a botched job where the person is now more ugly or than they originally thought they were. Obviously, the blood eagle is a dramatic choice but I think it works well with how being obsessed with changing your appearance can lead to disastrous results.
My initial sketches are exploring the idea of metamorphosis between the chair and ottoman. The idea was for the ottoman to be an exaggerated caterpillar shape while the chair would be more primarily based on the moth.
While having the moth's shape in mind to change the chair I also was considering how to included the natural leather but not as a fabric over. Instead, I was attempting to find a way to use the entire leather hide as a piece of the chair. This didn't work out so I continued on to exploring the moths' shape. What I decided on was using the wings as the handles of the chair.
Next was exploring how the cushion behind you while you sit could look. for this, I once again explored the idea of the moth's shape. the images below represent me exploring how to include the blood eagle into the design. The blood eagle would be the cushion you sit on.
The image/sheet below is an early attempt at joining the different elements. The idea I had was for the ottoman to be able to roll out from under the chair but while also being attached. The colour scheme is odd. At the time of doing it, I was looking into some of Gaetano Pesce work and I was drawn to using his type of output. I realised afterwards this wasn't what I really wanted the outcome to be so I basically restarted. I also realised that there was too much going on so had to be wined down into a more curated form that resembles the care and attention a surgeon would need when they are performing various types of plastic surgerys.
Below consists of various renders of the more refined form of the chair and ottoman. The triangular pattern represents the blood eagle but it is less brutal than what inspires it. The reason being it is a chair, therefore, it can't be off-putting and if it were no one would sit on it. The material of choice is leather but in two forms. The black is bonded leather and the brown is full-grain leather. The reason being is that the brown represents the skin that hasn't had surgery. whereas black represents the skin that has been modified. The material choice refers to the idea of plastic surgery. Another factor is that the black would be made from leftovers of the hide. Which would then be bonded on top of a fibre sheet by polyurethane and then spray painted black. You can't usually determine the percentage of natural leather in bonded leather therefore it also refers to what is real and fake on a person who has had plastic surgery. Instead of having the chair and ottoman joined together, it seemed it would be better if they weren't. The ottoman originally had wooden legs but I wasn't keen on them, so I changed them which is shown later on. The arms of the chair I have kept the same as shown ion in the initial sketches.
I eventually changed the legs on the ottoman to the same style as the arms of the chair. I also decide to place the outline of a face that is being marked before surgery. Yet instead of being an asymmetrical face, I wanted to explore the concept of which I had done for the ottoman legs. This was changing the correct perceived placement of how the wings should be placed (see images below) so instead of having the right wings to the right, I made the right wings the left wings. so basically I swapped the wings around from right to left. I did this to the face as well because it was my way of representing the term mutilation that had been mentioned throughout this section.
