theodora
vischer What were the reasons for developing and producing
the first Living Unit?
andrea zittel When I built my first Living Unit
I had just moved to New York and was making animal breeds
as my artwork. I was living in a tiny 200 square foot storefront
with a large dog and a lot of other animals ranging from
chickens to quails and house flies. Besides breeding animals
themselves, I was also making "Breeding Units" which were
furniture-like structures that I designed to influence and
affect the ways in which my animals developed and interbred.
I knew that these may sound a bit ominous, but they were
in actuality quite nice. They looked like neat, clean, modern
furniture and were very attractive and comfortable for the
animals. My friend, David, welded the frames and I fashioned
the paneled woodwork.
Because my space was so tiny, and because there was so
much going on in it, it was extremely chaotic and always
a real mess. One day I started thinking about how to deal
with the chaos of my own life and decided to have David
weld a frame in the 40 square foot space in which I was
living. We devised the frame as a flexible grid system so
that I could install cupboards, shelves and table exactly
where I needed them. I built my loft bed on top of this
structure. I used to refer to my first Living Unit as "a
little nucleus of perfection" which could be transported
to comfort and protect me no matter what sort of larger
environment I might live in. It was also sort of like owning
a home since it provided that feeling of consistency and
security in my life. The process of building this Living
Unit brought up so many issues that it eventually replaced
my preoccupation with breeding. I also really like the fact
that the issues I deal with by making furniture and living
arrangements are often the same questions and issues that
confront my audience in their daily lives.
tv How would you describe the benefits of living
with your Living Unit ?
az My Living Unit was designed to restructure the
things in my life which could have been seen as limitations
into "luxuries." Qualities such as lack of space and cluttered
environment were translated by my Living Unit into elegance
and simplicity.
At the time that I made my first Living Unit I had developed
a real infatuation with the language of modern design because
it redefined luxury based on an arbitrary ideological code
(like functionalism or minimalism) rather than on precious
materials or ornate handwork. The idea that modernism inverted
qualities which were once seen as the signs of poverty,
or as being "common," into the signs of moral superiority
and intellectual elevation completely fascinated me. It
was value inversions like this that I found both ironic
and wonderful. Of course these contradictions were even
better when I could use them to enhance my own situation!
tv Did you observe imperfections in your Living
Unit?
az I know that there are always plenty of "imperfections"
in my work. Once I attended a conference discussing the
"ideal office space." One of the speakers made the point
that the perfect office space was actually one with flaws
- because in the process of trying to correct the things
that the user conslders flawed, he is able to assert himself
more directly into his environment. It is when someone feels
that they have identified an "imperfection" that they feel
they have the right to change it. I really liked this observation
a lot since it brought up the idea of future potential as
end ideal, rather than perfection itself.
tv What have been your experiences during your use
of the Living Unit?
az When I was working on my Living Unit, I envisioned
that once I had perfected my unit, all of the other problems
in my life would be solved. Interestingly enough, once I
had "perfected" my unit, my life actually seemed rather
dull. This led to my theory that most of us don't really
want perfection in our lives. Rather, we want eternal progress
to wards a distant and ever improving ideal. I lived with
my first Living Unit for a little over a year, sometimes
loving it and sometimes hating it. It was fun to change
the interior because the parameters were so small. With
a minimal degree of effort, I could establish rather dramatic
changes. Accessories were constantly changing since there
was never enough room to put everything out at once. I believe
I changed the color behind the unit several times. I actually
did quite a bit of entertaining in the unit. It was pleasant
to cook in because I could stand about two feet away from
my guest while preparing dinner. I was never lonely in my
Living Unit! However, once a friend was just too overwhelmed
by my confines of the unit that he just had to leave.
tv Is the concept and the form of the Living Unit
influenced by your Californian origin and childhood?
az I grew up in what used to be a very remote area
in the hills of Southern California. When I was born my
dad and a few of his friends built our house. I always thought
that it was funny because he built our house himself expressly
so that it would uniquely express his and my mother's own
special tastes and desires. Somehow though, in the end,
our house looked just like all of the other homes built
in 1965!
My dad's parents were immigrants from Germany and my mother
came from a family of pioneering ranchers. I was brought
up believing in science, rationalism and progress. My mom
was always working on a new self-improvement scheme. Even
cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen junk drawer could
take on redemptive significance. My family subscribed to
"Sunset Magazine" which inspired many home make-overs. It
presented all sorts of different systems that one could
construct in one's house to reorganize and perfect absolutely
any area of one's life.
I remember being completely amazed when I began to notice
many of the ways in which the things that I learned about
the ambitions of the modernist European avant-garde seemed
to resemble the optimism and the hunger for progress of
my own home culture. Things like Le Corbusier's ideas for
living seemed to be answered by the huge communities of
planned housing around my own home. There was also an interesting
(if temporary) sort of levelling effect, since everything
was so homogeneous in its "newness." Most surfaces were
new, clean, plastic and white.
Intellectually of course, we understand the failures or
"death" of modernism. However, in the desires and expectations
of our day to day lives we continue to have an almost superstitious
faith in the inevitability of "linear evolution," in the
possibility to constantly reconfigure our lives and in an
unshakable belief in progress. I don't really see beliefs
as "problems." In fact I am sometimes enchanted by the child-like
innocence or optimism in the ability to cling to such faith.
tv Does the Living Unit need a certain context to
"work" or is it appropriate everywhere?
az While I wouldn't really want to recommend one
context over another, the situation in which you put a Living
Unit definitely does affect its definition and function.
When I made a Living Unit for myself at home it was really
a process of personal exploration and experimentation. When
I made several Living Units and started to sell and exhibit
them, it made me think about much more public issues such
as production and distribution, and about what sorts of
roles my pieces would play in other people's lives.
I think it is really important that I keep in mind just
who would be most likely to purchase a Living Unit. For
instance a collector with a certain sort of relationship
to the idea of art object would be more - likely to purchase
one of my Living Units than a college student. Obviously
I would like for my work to be used, but ultimately it is
less likely that a collector would use it since they might
have a certain attitude or "respect" towards art.
I am trying to find ways to address this dilemma, and it
brings up some interesting issues pertaining to our perception
or the function of art. For instance, would someone buy
my furniture instead of a piece of Ikea furniture because
they think that as art it answers a more moral or pure function
than a regular product? Would they believe that art is not
a commodity? Would they feel that my tastes or my vision
is more important or "valuable" than their own personal
desires? Do they think that it is important not to taint
the singular vision or authorship of a product?
tv What person is especiaily qualified to own a
Living Unit: a person who needs it essentially? Or rather
a person for whom the Living Unit is an opportunity for
an experiment?
az I would imagine that the person who would feel
most "liberated" by a Living Unit, would be some one who
was already surrounded by a lot of material possessions.
It might even be that at times they feel that their possessions
may in fact possess them! In this instance, the Living Unit
would be a liberation and its minimal furnishings would
be the ultimate luxury.
tv In addition to the Living Units you developed
and produced other groups of works like the Comfort Units,
the Beds, the Uniforms and the Travel Trailers. How would
you describe the common thread that unites these different
works?
az The common thread in most of my artworks is also
the common thread in my own life. The best way that I can
define it is by saying that I am always looking for the
grey area between freedom (which can sometimes feel too
open-ended and vast) and security (which may easily turn
into confinement). I am always fascinated by the way a quality
which initially appears to be liberating can suddenly turn
out to be confining, and vice versa.
Being able to buy furniture that is "art" could be comforting
to some people because they might feel that it was somehow
inherently "better" than regular furniture: its existence
would be validated by an ideological underpinning and of
course it could always be an investment. This security,
however, could become rather confining if they one day were
to get tired of the color of the piece. Then they would
just feel frustrated by the repression of owning this object.
What if the artist decided that they could change the color
of the object without altering its integrity as artwork?
This might seem liberating until they actually get around
to deciding on the colors. If they had read home decorating
magazines or had consulted with a decorator they might realize
that a whole science had been devoted to determining the
right colors and wrong colors. In fact, what was the right
color one year could even be the wrong color the next year
... so it goes on from here in what seems to be comforting
becomes repressive and then what appears as a form of liberation,
rolls over into something else again!
When I started making Travel Trailers I thought that owning
a trailer was the way to access ultimate mobility and freedom.
Then when I started traveling around in my trailer I realized
that many people park their trailers in one location and
then rarely move them. When I spoke to these people I found
that they actually found freedom in the small aild intimate
interiors of their trailers rather than in the extensive
exterior world. Once again my original idea of how we access
freedom was completely turned around! Now I am making Escape
Vehicles which address some of these new understandings.
With an Escape Vehicle one "escapes" by going inside of
their own custom made little world, rather than by taking
the vehicle to another geographical location. |