So far I have established that we attach meaning to objects through a variety of private and public social processes which reveal and sometimes obscure the meanings that objects hold for us. Woodward (2007, 4) argues that, through these processes, objects come to be used as markers of value, identity and encapsulate social and political power. This occurs, for example, when objects form an integral part of symbolic social rituals, such as the wedding bands used in Christian churches and western civil marriages. Less obvious, perhaps, is the manner in which quotidian objects, such as many of those used by the artists in this study, are endowed with meanings and value through their use in mundane daily tasks, such as brushing one’s teeth or catching the bus.
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Miller’s theory of “the humility of things” (2005; 2010) is useful for thinking about the manner in which even seemingly invaluable, quotidian objects, do cultural and social work.
In recounting the manner in which he arrived at this theory, Miller (2010, 5) points out that while researching the significance of the different pots used in Indian rituals he was told repeatedly that ‘the pots didn’t mean anything’. He realised that to focus on the pots was to miss the point of their significance (Miller 2010). While the pots were important in carrying out the rituals in which they were used, they were not implicated in the significance of the rituals by the participants (Miller 2010). In other words, the pots were important in
enabling the rituals, but were not part of the purpose or envisaged outcomes of the rituals.
This realisation led Miller (2010) to develop his theory of “the humility of things”, which refers to the capacity of objects to affect our behaviours and enable social practices while remaining relatively unnoticed. The theory of “the humility of things” applies to quotidian objects which are ubiquitous, and help us to be in the world, and also to less common objects, such as the pots discussed above, which we use during special occasions, but that we nevertheless ignore because they are not the point of the rituals. These objects provide the backdrop. In introducing his theory, Miller (2010, 5) argues that
…objects are important not because they are evident and physically constrain or enable, but often precisely because we do not “see” them. The less we are aware of them, the more powerfully they can determine our expectations by setting the scene and ensuring normative behaviour.
Thus, for Miller (2010) not only does the meaning of objects lie in the meanings we attach to them but, through their use, the objects around us shape us as much as we shape them.
This process he casts in a Hegelian mould in which, in a process of ‘objectification’, what we produce is a reflection of ourselves, and what we produce also produces ourselves (Miller, 2005).
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Miller points out that for Hegel, (1977, cited in Miller 2005, 8)
…everything that we are and do arises out of the reflection upon ourselves given by the mirror image of the process by which we create form and are created by this same process.
Miller’s interpretation of Hegel’s self-alienation as objectification underpins his theory of the humility of things, which can be thought of as “…a dialectical theory of objectification that challenges the Cartesian dualism of subjects and objects” (Miller 2010, 69). If what we produce is a reflection of ourselves, it follows that we construct things, which construct us, and in turn, we construct more things that reflect who we are. Part of our subjectivity rests on our relationship to objects, which is characterised by this process of mutual creation. The idea of the humility of things, that are significant to us because they help us to be in the world, may also account for why Seejarim and Alborough are drawn to using such seemingly insignificant objects in their work.
Another way of thinking about the manner in which objects could be seen to make us as much as we make them is through the phenomenological understanding that when we perceive something we are entering into a relationship with that thing, connecting us with what we are looking at. Jay (1993, 268) argues that for phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty “…consciousness was not independent of its object, nor was an object a thing standing apart to be viewed from afar; consciousness was always of something”. Implied is that mutual creation occurs when we are conscious of ourselves perceiving something outside ourselves; in this moment we both know what is self and what is not self (other).
This amplifies Miller’s conception of mutual creation, since it provides a way of
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understanding the possible ways in which the process of mutual creation happens. Implied in the idea of the mutually constructing relationship between subjects and objects is
another; that in this process of mutual creation, and in as much as objects enable social and cultural practices, objects have agency64.
The idea of the humble object, that is quietly in the background, but that nevertheless has agency to shape our everyday practices, is helpful for thinking about the manner in which quotidian objects come to have so much significance. It is also helpful for thinking about the significance of the use of quotidian objects in artworks: the bus tickets used by Seejarim are quintessentially humble objects, usually unnoticed, but nevertheless enabling movement through time and space by giving the bearer access to the bus.65 The bus tickets fit into Miller’s (2010) description of objects that are part of life, but which are not really noticed, yet help shape us because they are part of our daily practices; the tickets partly enable the journey, but are not the point of the journey. In using these bus tickets, in an artwork, Seejarim creates a new situation for the objects (as part of art), and in so doing also creates new meanings for the objects. This theory is not as easily transposed onto a discussion of Siopis’s use of found objects because the objects used by Siopis are not ‘humble’, and ubiquitous such as those used by Alborough and Seejarim. Further, although the objects used by Siopis in Reconnaissance, 1900- 1997, for example, may have, at some point in time, been ‘humble’ in Miller’s (2010) terms, at the time Siopis uses them in her artworks the
64 The potential agency of objects specifically in relation to Gell’s (1998) theory of the agency of artworks as a special category of object is explored in depth in chapter eight.
65 Of course the pegs and cable ties used by Alborough are also humble objects in Miller’s terms.
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objects’ heirloom status already marks them as ‘special’, even though they might otherwise be regarded as trash.
The transition from being part of the world to being part of an artwork changes the “humble objects”. In the case of the particular bus tickets used by Seejarim, their incorporation into artworks, changes these bus tickets from being rubbish (once expired), to being preserved and looked at in a different way. They are also given a new economic value as part of the artwork66. Following Miller’s (2010) conception of the humility of things, it can be argued that things shape us as much as we shape them, and when things are part of art, they are no longer humble but foregrounded, and scrutinised. The notion of the humble object, that remains unnoticed because of its ubiquity, but nevertheless shapes us, stands in contrast to the idea of an artwork, an object which is exhibited, scrutinised and valued for its
singularity. This binary is the foundation of the first (and subsequent) uses of found objects as materials in the collages of Picasso and Braque, and the designation of whole objects as artworks in Duchamp’s unassisted readymades. The historical avant-garde use of found objects employed the contrast between the humble object and the status of the art object as unique object, to highlight the values ascribed to both the humble object and the
artwork. Through this contrast we were enabled to see how the object is constructed in the context from which it comes, and it simultaneously reveals the frame of art discourse67. The artwork helps us look at the object in new ways. It can be argued that in as much as objects
66 The idea of a new economic value being assigned to objects as they move through different social spaces is explored by Kopytoff (1986) in his theory of “the social biography of things”, which builds on Appadurai’s (1986) notion of the social life of things and considers how objects have different economic value at different times of their life cycle and as they move through social spaces and in time.
67 This will be discussed in depth in chapter four in which, following Danto (1981) I pursue the question of what separates artworks from other sorts of objects.
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are a reflection of us, when found objects are used in the field of art, the resultant artworks enable us to look at how other things make us, and thereby to see ourselves in new ways.