Found Objects
Found Objects
Found objects are especially common in industrial music, although music from other genres may integrate found objects. For example, some classical musicians like to work with birdsong, integrating it into their performances and using it as a base to develop new melodies and themes. Pots and pans may be beaten as drums in ethnic music, while the dance and music performance known as Stomp utilizes found objects ranging from mops to saws as musical instruments. A found object in music may be subtle or jarring, melodious or cacophonous, but it will usually attract interest. 3
A pique assiette mosaic can be seen as a collage of found and prepared objects, rearranged into new combinations. This montage approach gives wide scope for imagination and innovation, as in any mixed media assemblage. It also generates the humour often associated with pique assiette. As objects are given new roles or used in unexpected ways, they make the viewer consider everyday items in a different context. 6
A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things (including, at times, dead bodies) which occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being employed in an artistic way, and are designated as “found” to distinguish them from purposely created items used in the art forms. 4
FOUND OBJECT ? A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things (including, at times, dead bodies) which occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being employed in an artistic way, and are designated as “found” to distinguish them from purposely created items used in the art forms. 2
Early uses of found objects in art focussed on the readymades of artists such as Marcel Duchamp, who shocked the art world with his famous display of a ceramic urinal (”Fountain”) in 1917. Pablo Picasso and Kurt Schwitters were among many early proponents of the use of found objects in art, which became an important feature in the work of many schools of art, including the Surrealist, Dadaist, Merz, and Conceptual art movements. 8
This type of mosaic work has more levels of appreciation than might first appear, and it draws on a long history of influential examples. As a folk tradition, or a craft hobby, it is certainly art that anyone can have a share in, yet it offers scope for strong personal statements, originality, visual puns, exuberance and the happy accidents of serendipity. It can bring order to chaos, or vice versa, depending on the mood of the maker. 7
Found objects have gained increasing importance in art over the course of the twentieth century, with many art movements finding new freedoms of expression which had been stifled by the more stringent definitions of art previously used. In the last fifty years, artists ranging from Robert Rauschenberg to Tracey Emin have incorporated found objects into their work either as a main focus of the art or as embellishing features. 9
Some cynics point out that one of the primary advantages of a found object is that it is often cheap, or free, despite the fact that some found objects are extremely expensive. Fans of found object art point out that the use of found objects in art illustrates the ability to find the beauty in everyday things, and that the inclusion of a found object in an art piece often causes people to think about that object, and sometimes the world, in very new ways. 5
