The past few days I have been working on the physical project itself.  As I was constructing boxes to frame the piece (or pieces) I remembered  a tiny curio shelf I had created a few years ago.  It was a piece that I filled with little objects and created a painting from.  The painting was a parody on a Mondrian piece.  Below on the left is a photo of the shelf itself.  The painting itself is on the right.  Looking at this little shelf now in relation to my thesis project, I realized what I am thinking of creating is a bit like a cabinet of curiosities or even a "room of wonder", Wunderkammer.

Theory of Humanity

 

In the 16th century the cabinet of curiosities became popular among wealthy nobility and aristocrats.  Collections of items, often from travels,  that were natural or man made and held historic, scientific, cultural, or religious meanings were housed in these cabinets.  Some of these collections were housed in entire rooms and were referred to as Kuntskammar or Wunderkammer.  I love the thought of a city being a collection of the same. It is a collection of ornamentation and ideals borrowed from around the world.  When new discoveries or ideas come to being they are added to the city through architecture and ornamentation.   I found this quote from Horst Bredenkamp, "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron's control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction."¹    I think this is a great jumping off point for my piece.

The photo on the far right is the first box I have constructed.  I used velum for the mock-up but plan to use a variety of materials in the actual piece.  The ornamentation will work its way around and through the boxes rather that just being enclosed in them.   I plan to display the boxes in a way that the viewer can move around them. One does not stand in place and view the city as a picture but rather moves around in it.

 

 

First experiment

Johann Georg Hainz -

1666-Cabinet of Curiosities

 

^{1. Cabinet of Curiosities,  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cabinet_of_curiosities&oldid=513429550,}
Francesca Fiorani, reviewing Bredecamp 1995 in Renaissance Quarterly 51.1 (Spring 1998:268-270) p 268