{"id":6014,"date":"2023-10-29T18:35:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T18:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/?p=6014"},"modified":"2024-10-18T09:37:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:37:16","slug":"anthropomorphic-sculpture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/anthropomorphic-sculpture\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropomorphic assemblage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art-images\/anthropomorphic-sculpture-found-objects-P1007202.jpg\" alt=\"Contemporary sculpture anthropomorphic found objects\" title=\"Contemporary sculpture anthropomorphic found objects\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Anthropomorphic sculpture from found objects.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mole wrench and oil can cap.     October 2023.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A mole wrench and an oil can cap create an anthropomorphic sculpture suggesting an embracing couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sculpture came about when I was about to put teak oil on my kitchen worktop, which was something I&#8217;d been putting off for the previous five years. The cap of the tin of teak oil was rusted in place due to lack of use and I had to take it off using a mole wrench. Holding the resulting wrench and cap combination instantly I sensed the potential for it to be a work of art in some way, partly because the oil can&#8217;s cap resembled an eye when the light struck it. At first I thought that the assemblage perhaps resembled a fish, but after a bit of turning it round in my hands I saw human forms emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a good example of the way that people can interpret objects differently to the nature of the objects themselves. I believe that our brains interpret things based on a hierarchy of significance. The brain sees something and then scans down a list of likely possibilities for what the thing is, with highly significant things at the top of the list. At the very top of the list is &#8216;human being&#8217;. Very much lower down the list, if it&#8217;s on the list a all, is &#8216;mole wrench&#8217;. When you see a mole wrench in a tool box you automatically go straight to the &#8216;mole wrench&#8217; item way down your brain&#8217;s list, because the context in which you see the wrench is strongly suggestive that it is indeed a mole wrench that you&#8217;re looking at. However, in the context-free setting of the photo above your brain has to work harder and has to consult its built-in list of possibilities, at the top of which is &#8216;human being&#8217;. The wrench possesses something of the shape of a human form, and thus the connection is made. The fact that the wrench is standing in a way that no mole wrench in the real world could do without support helps to amplify the effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthropomorphic sculpture from found objects. Mole wrench and oil can cap. October 2023. A mole wrench and an oil can cap create an anthropomorphic sculpture suggesting an embracing couple. The sculpture came about when I was about to put teak oil on my kitchen worktop, which was something I&#8217;d been putting off for the previous [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[94,125,76,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6014"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9695,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions\/9695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christophermadden.art\/contemporary-art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}