Sofa Destruction Project
The pattern of destruction generally starts with a feeling of frustration. The breaking point is in search of a feeling of relief. I have been building with the goal of perfection, a pristine, geometrically accurate, balanced object. When I was asked at what point within my process, I felt most satisfied with my work, I realised that my sense of satisfaction comes within the act of building. The frustration comes thereafter when the object is built, I am no longer building, and I become frustrated. Then I start destroying the very thing that I have just poured all my effort into in hopes of regaining and grasping onto the satisfaction that I felt as I was building it.
Controlling and harnessing the cathartic feeling of destring the thing that I have built by building to destroy, plotting destruction, predicting destruction, then destroying. Thus, theoretically removing the feeling of frustration that usually accompanies the process of destruction. Instead, turning it into a process that is intentional, precise, and almost of a scientific nature. An experiment in the form of constructing something to fall apart, or rather, being destroyed. Alongside an attempt to predict how it will all fall apart: a hypothesis in the form of a drawing.
Though this is not only for my personal feelings of relief through destruction, but also to capture what is usually a gradual and continuous descent into a state of destruction. Condensing that into a single, intentional instance of destruction. The habitually sat-on spot on the left side of the sofa would slowly collapse inward until the cushion had entirely lost its shape. A sofa made almost entirely of paper would not allow that; it will likely break on first impact. But it won’t last; it is made to fall apart.
Each item, each step, acts as a piece of data that contributes to a question. However, unlike an experiment of the scientific kind, this artistic experiment poses an ever-evolving set of open-ended questions. It is an ongoing process of research and experimentation examining the vague and vast concept of destruction, in my world and the rest of the world as well.