Experiment 2 was focusing on bench’s several characteristics.
I found benches aren’t merely the sitting objects for humans. They contain different meanings for different kinds of people. What’s more, since some specific human activities only take place on benches, benches started to build strong connection with these activities. Therefore, benches are given new characteristics. They are now even the container of emotions.
After doing some brainstorm, I listed some common characteristics that are related to benches. They are fun, social, depressed and shelter.
Benches are mostly used for sitting for adults. However, kids usually don’t care that much about those sitting manners or other limits. They can turn every place into their playground, including benches. If there are some kids play on the bench, they will do anything except for sitting there quietly. They will climb up and down, run around the bench and play hide and seek around the bench. For them, benches are a good place to have fun, just like the slide.
The bench is the longer version of chair. They are designed for two or more people to sit together. “Sharing” seems to be the keyword of benches, but for people with social phobia, benches are just like nightmares.
There is a common phenomenon often shows in movies that a depressed-looking man sitting on a bench, usually with a bottle of wine and heavy rain as the background. The reason might be getting a bankrupt, divorce or other tragedies. The man has no place to go so he can only stay on the bench. Then benches start to relate with frustration and depressions.
Based on some observation, I found homeless people like to choose benches as their temporary shelters. Although these benches can’t block the rain or cold, they are still good choice for spending a night.
After doing some experiments, I decided to use models to visualize these concepts.
I used the 3D printing pen to built the slide-bench. The combination of these two objects has bench’s shape and slide’s stairs. Kids will like it very much.
In order to show the feeling of some antisocials, I used some wood batten to built a small bench and cut it into two pieces. I believe for every person with social phobia, the only safe area on the bench is the half they are sitting on.
In many artworks, melting always the metaphor of the death or fade away of good things. In my work, I borrowed the negative meaning of melting and use it to show depression. I built a small bench with 3D modeling pen and use the lighter to make it melt. The final product looks like melting chocolate.
I used chalk to make the last model. The reason why I used chalk is that I want to use chalk to express the fragility of benches when they are used as shelters. The life of homeless people is not easy, their temporary home can’t block anything for them.
