Object Care as an Intentional Experience between Art and Design

 

Over the century, modern culture has produced many critical discourses on subject-object relationship that draws attention to: 1. subject-object polarity, 2. position of design as a very certain kind of objects in the world of goods that either serve for ideas and dreams or represent subjects’ identities. Subject-object relationship is mainly debated on two processes: industrial production and mass consumption of objects. Critical texts on industrial production of objects emphasize the theory of alienation. The mass consumption of things is criticized focusing on loss of meaning and experience context. The study is based on a critical practice, entitled as ‘object hospital’ between art and design in order to emphasize intentional experience as a more complimentary subject-object relationship in the context of meaning and experience. Object Hospital, in which a group of abandoned objects are cared as phenomenological reflection, is related with Husserlian concept of intentional experience along with the thematic dualities: ‘recognition’ and ‘relatedness’; ‘meaning’ and ‘healing’; ‘care’ and ‘production’ in relevance of design within socio-cultural context.