Reflecting Rocks
September 4th, 2012 By some bears
This “messing about” works to make abstract concepts of philosophy more comprehensible through a material connection to a pet rock. The act of making the rock and of taking the rock should open new perspectives on the philosophical figure and the ideas this figure develops. The constructed object is a medium between the intellectual and the playful, the material and the digital. The maker should assemble the pet rock as an embodiment of the forthcoming theoretical reflections saved in digital space and tagged to this object.
This digital message can be a YouTube video, a twitter account, a blog, a facebook page, or any sort of social media channel traditionally associated with a living person who walks and breathes. This messing about complicates the rigid notion of personal profiles online, by repurposing these spaces as a forum for dialog between an anonymous conduit for a lofty or inaccessible figure and a recipient of a childish physical object.
Attaching a QR code to the object will provide a hyperlink to the rock’s “soul” in digital space. The maker of this hybrid object can explore different perspectives by producing digital artifacts as if he were the philosopher. The recipient can exploit the methods of two-way communication built into social networks in order to communicate with the figure embodied by his found rock.
Making the rock might prompt questions such as:
- Who will care for my rock?
- What does my rock stand for?
- How will my rock be received?
These questions refer to the physical object being made, but metaphorically extend to the human figure it represents. For example
- Who will care for this figure?
- What does this figure stand for?
- How will this character be received?
The recipient of the rock might ask, “How is this rock meaningful in my life?” to which he can begin to find the answer exploring the digital information matched with this crafted object.