Ready-made (en)

De GERMINADOR wiki

In 1916, being in New York, Marcel Duchamp writes to her sister Suzanne asking if she could get some stuff from his studio in Paris. Among other things, he comments:

'When you came upstairs to my studio, you noticed the wheel of the bike and the colander. I had bought them as finished sculptures. Now I have had an idea regarding the colander: listen. Here in Nova York, I’ve bought similar objects and I’ve called them . You know the English well enough to understand the meaning of that I want to ascribe to these objects. I sign them and I write an inscription in English. I will illustrate it with some examples: I have bought a big spade for the snow Please do not try to read it under a Romantic, Impressionist or Cubist point of view – it has nothing to do with this. Another is called ... All this bore has a raison d’être: go and fetch the colander. I will produce an off-site .You will have to write at the base and on the inside of the bottom ring in small letters painted with an oil-painting brush, in silver white colour, the inscription that I will give you after this, and you will sign it in the same hand as follows ' (quote in MINK 2002:57)

In the practicing of the ready-made something is recognised and identified as "finished work ", as an art piece already finished. It is re-contextualized or re-interpreted by means of this recognition. The ready-made shows that the direct intervention of the artist in the production of the work of art is not necessary. Taking this idea to an extreme and relating it to the 'aesthetics of reception we could say that it is the look of the audience what rounds up the construction of the work, and thus any aesthetic experience is somehow a ready-made built up by those who are living it. And this experience has to do with a common ground between the previous ideas and the stimulus of that moment.

When a ready-made is released, when there is communication by means of an element as a ready-made, we understand that a there is a proposal for re-interpretation. That look is taken to a collective and social context.

The harvesting of seeds in this project is understood as a type of ready-made. When we choose a computer programme as a seed we are re-contextualizing it and willing it to be re-interpreted from different perspectives.