// TOOTHBRUSH FOR TWO
TOOTHBRUSH FOR TWO
Serie of digital objects
Project: Half-half
2018/21
Serie of digital objects
Project: Half-half
2018/21
Toothbrush for two - redesign 2021: an essay on space
The toothbrush for two is a drawing from a series of works under the common title "Half-half".Through a series of Half-and-Half works, I work with the idea of space. Limited by the lack of understandable scientific definitions of the term space and the feeling of the impossibility of representing the incomprehensible, I represent space through an object.
The context:
2020 // From March to May, during the first Covid quarantine in France, we left the house once a day, usually for a walk in the yard where we would spin like guinea pigs in a cage, walking in a circle, from one side of the garden to another, from wall to wall. For the second, winter quarantine of the same year, we got the right to work in the studio. As self-employed, this time we were given the right to write "excuses" to ourselves that we could not continue working from home. All events, public and private in our collective studio were interrupted. Only sometimes would we would meet with our colleagues in the hallway, covered in masks, exchange a few words, and lock ourselves back in silent studios.
I came back to the Half-Half project. A toothbrush redesign for 2020. Simon and I spend all our time together. I watch us as we move around the apartment, as we try to get around in the hallway, big enough for just one, as we spin through the rooms of our small apartment. I imagine we should wear sensors, like cats whose movements are recorded by their owners, and describe our journey from the bathroom to the bed, from the sofa to the kitchen, to the end of the long garden, and the furthest journey, to the store. I imagine us as two lines intertwining in space, written within the moments where they touch, moments where they diverge.
I am trying to define this space. I feel when we get nervous when we forget that the other one is somewhere else, hidden behind the earphones, in front of the screen, lost in thoughts. Through the window of my apartment, I listen to the neighbors and their lives, behind closed doors and relationships exposed in extreme forms due to forced socializing. Not all stories are as positive as ours. During the first and second waves of quarantine in some European countries, the increase in domestic violence increased to unimaginable proportions. While some countries tend to expose this side of domestic lives, others deny it through the statistics which show nothing but a lack of approachable services for the victims.
At the end of the year, we are designing a new studio. We are constructing smaller rooms on 2 floors and dividing the space. We will set up a wall between our spaces: you play here and I play there.
The object:
The toothbrush for two is an absurd object, created as a by-product of unsuccessful definitions of space. It is an intimate object, which puts the two in a position of sharing intimacy on a level we are often unwilling to accept. In this case, it becomes a symbol whose meaning lies in the relations between individuals, space, and culture. The toothbrush, as a symbol, is but the tool that allows me to talk about seemingly abstract elements through a physical object. Its value lies in symbolism and process, rather than in the finished, unusable product. I decide not to make any of the models, but to present them exclusively digitally - following the current state of the gallery exhibition.
The full project contains a series of drawings and 3D objects.