Post 16: Objects trying to be other things

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I like when objects look like they’re trying. (I haven’t written here in a while and I’m feeling like I probably always begin these posts with some version of “I like…” which…is actually a pretty honest display of the fact that I do usually happen to be writing about what I like. Anyway, I like the way objects seem when they appear as though they are trying to do or be something other than what they are.) Versions of this include an object:

-trying to look like another object


-trying to form a certain shape or structure 

-trying to look larger (or smaller) than it is

Though, I question this as I say it. Is an object “trying to look like another object” just one object that resembles another? Is an object trying to form a certain shape just an object taken out of its typical, found state? Is an object trying to look smaller than another just an object that is squished, or, out of proportion to its environment? Is to say that an object looks like it is trying [to be something] the same as to say that it just looks uncomfortable or clumsy? Does it say something else? More blatantly: Is there a difference between something that looks like it’s “trying” and something that looks awkward?

I think “trying objects” usually incorporate awkwardness, but I don’t think awkward objects always have a sense of trying. Sometimes things are just stagnantly strange. Actually, I feel like ascribing the word “trying” to an object’s appearance may be a certain way to look at its awkwardness. To see awkwardness as an unresolved state. A moment desiring resolution. An object “trying to be like something else” as in an object that “wants to move out of the precarity of being awkward.” In this way, it’s exciting to see something that looks as if it’s tending out of uneasiness while it’s at the same time inevitably stuck in this condition. Objects like this take on qualities of impossibility–in this case, qualities related to change and movement, despite the fact that the objects themselves are unchanging and motionless. (Assuming I'm talking about objects that are unchanging and motionless.)

I think the word “trying” gets at the tension between the qualities that exist in the situations I'd apply it to. This tension comes forth as a strain between object and situation--a mismatch between what something is and the way that it’s framed--a lack of cohesion between these two planes. There's also an element (and maybe this is a part of the tension) to "trying" that implies incompleteness--that the end goal of an attempt has not yet been reached. I assigned pretty clear end goals to the object situations I included above, but I wonder if there's a different kind of appearance depending on how clear the "goal" is. What is the look to an object that is trying to be something else when it's not clear what it's trying for?



Additional versions of objects trying to be other things:

-objects trying to be themselves

-objects trying to be invisible or nothing at all

-objects trying to be actions

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