When I learned that our first prompt was related to displacement, my mind immediately went to cell phones. I am fascinated by society’s attachment and relationship to their phones, from how often we are on them, to our fear of losing or breaking them, to the ways they both help and hurt our lives. Thus, when I was assigned to displace an object so that its new and unlikely placement may bring about interesting social responses or insight, I knew the cell phone would be the perfect object, as people rely on their phones every single day and I felt they would elicit strong reactions, such as fear or anxiety, if I took this object away from them and put it in a new or risky place.
I conducted this project by taking away two of my friend’s cellphones for a day. I first took photographs of my friends with their phones in their daily lives, such as in bed, on the couch, or on the computer. I attempted to capture these moments when they weren’t aware, as people can relate to texting in bed when you are supposed to be reading a novel, or getting distracted from doing work on your laptop. To displace the phones, I decided to put them in risky places where there was the possibility of them either breaking or falling, such as in a sink, as well as dangling from my third floor balcony. While most of this went smoothly as my friends trusted me, there were some relevant efforts that did not produce a result. For example, one of my friends wouldn’t let me hold her phone on my balcony because she was too fearful. In addition, I attempted to take pictures of the phones in my bathroom sink; however, photographing phones in my kitchen sink produced a much greater reaction, as this sink had more depth, as well as dirty pots and pans.
I was very excited to see what the social response caused by the displacement of the cellphones would be, as I know how attached we are to these devices and that they rarely leave our sides. It was also important to me to do this project with two subjects, as they could have very difference responses. The first friend I did it with was much more nervous and anxious. As I put her phone under the refrigerator water dispenser, she yelled “Be careful, the water could go off,” and when I put her phone in the kitchen sink, she warned me, “Don’t put it with the dirty pans.” This was also the friend that would not allow me to bring her phone outdoors, out of fear that I would drop it. The second friend whose phone I took was more relaxed; she did not follow me around, as the first friend did, when I was putting her phone in places. This told me that perhaps her phone was not as important to her, and that she was willing to risk it getting damaged.
My project relates to this week’s lecture on plop art, which is art that you plop in a space but that has no relation to the sight. This relates to my displacement of cellphones because I was choosing to place this object in random spaces, such as a sink or balcony, that it has no relation to; further, plop art is a derogatory term, which I feel at first is how the public would respond to my photographs. However, if it had been their cellphone that was taken and placed in risky spaces, I feel they would realize that this project was relatable, rather than random. This further relates to the lecture’s discussion on the CowParade because just as the cow is the symbol of Chicago, I feel the cellphone is the symbol of our generation; thus, doing anything with a symbolic object can elicit an unexpected response. Lastly, my project relates to the discussion on Duchamp’s work, Fountain, in which a urinal was placed in the context of a museum. This urinal was an everyday object that became a piece of art because it was displaced; this inspired me to choose a cellphone, as it is not an object that one would traditionally think of as art. However, once the phone was thought of in this new context, I feel it helped to challenge the traditional meanings of a phone and evoke a provocative response.