ObjectLab 1.1: Blindfold Exercise

These are highlights from one of a series of object study exercises that were held during Object Lab 1.1 at the Chipstone Foundation (www.chipstone.org) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in June of 2009. Nine talented undergraduates were in attendance from a variety of schools and many different disciplines--art history, history, studio art, geography, industrial design, and architecte. The overall goal of this intensive material culture program was to explore innovative ways to think about and look at old things.

The 2009 ObjectLab 1.1 began with an exercise in close looking--only without using visual analysis, the dominant sense used in evaluating objects. Three groups of three students each were segregated into separate rooms where at any given moment two of the three were engaged in hands-on blindfold analysis of a historic furniture form. The third student sat behind a folding scree, shielded from seeing the piece, and recorded the observations. After writing up museum type labels and perspective drawings for each piece, the objects were finally revealed to the groups. They then made formal presentations to Dr. Temple Burling, a Carthage College biophysicist who has a keen interest in objects as they relate to science and to the historic cabinets of curiosity.

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