Help a Sculpture and other abfunctional potentials

Abstract

This practice-led research investigates the relationship between sculpture and concepts of function in contemporary art. Since the Enlightenment, art and function have commonly been understood as mutually exclusive concepts. Associated with everyday life, function is considered outside the sphere of art, where the art object is predominantly positioned as "functionless" and hence "autonomous" from the everyday prerequisites of living. In the instances where art has incorporated function, this has frequently been framed in terms of dysfunction, "dissolving art into life," or as an alternative strategy in the "dematerialisation of the art object." Yet, a neologism that emerged from my own art ..