a touchy table
author: Olivera Neskovic year: 2017 (3rd year) course: Studio studio coordinator: Michael Fohring
this is a touchy table This is a table for one. It is made for those who lack intimacy. We call them “the single people”; the “lonely”. They are the people we pity, but who do not pity themselves. This is a table for indulgence. Indulge on it. It has been designed for romance. Get romantic. Get close to it. This is a table for you. Just you.
“come sit on my stool. feel my globules shift beneath you. feel my weight resting on your thighs. feel my weight on you. how soft I am. how comforting. touch me. squeeze me.
i squeeze back.”
a series of soft nudges The following are collage visualizations of the intimacy a user feels on their exposed legs when sitting at the touchy table. The table’s sacs rest on the thigh, push on the calves and dangle over the skin ever-so gently, reminding one of the touch of a human. Also, these are my father’s legs (edited).
the unfolding of a weeknight dinner Tom comes home to a dark and lonely apartment on a Tuesday evening. It is 6:50pm, and work was shit. Derek pantsed him at the weekly Lunch and Learn. Pam is still ignoring him after the printer “incident�. He spilled coffee all over himself at 9:23am and had to sit in caffeine scented cubicle for 9 hours.
But Tom is home now.
He peels off his socks and pours himself a glass of wine. The microwave zaps his Sunday night steak leftovers. Finally he brings it all to the table...
use me / abuse me Imagining a world devoid of discrimination against sexual preference. Touch the table any way you like. It will touch you back.
Imagining the table multiplied, in a restaurant setting. Here we do not pity the solo diner, we envy them.
composition and construction ingredients: ~ 35 kg of flour ~ one sheet of 1.5m by 1.5m by 15mm sheet of baltic birch plywood ~ two sheets of 2ft by 2ft by 1/4 inch sheet of birch plywood ~ 600 balloons (300 in cream, 50 in white, 250 in ivory silk) ~ 5 pine table legs ~ 3 hardwood bed legs ~ 150 rubber bands ~ 35 screws ~ 8 steel leg plates ~ wood glue The assembly from start to finish, post-designing, took 8 days. This included filling 600 balloons with 35 kilograms of flour using funnels and poking sticks. The skeletons of the table and stool are composed primarily of wood. The balloons spread over the furniture, over the legs on the table and over the seat of the stool. The source of the growth begins on the underbellies of both beasts. The following two pages document the construction and assembly.
prep. and construction
assembly
process work The following pages document the design process behind concepts leading up to as well as including the final concept. The inital sketches and material explorations are very different from “the touchy table� and it is difficult to draw clear connections to the final product, however, this process of elimination lead me to a soft and touchy result. Initially, I was more interested in the object itself, but as the project progressed, I became more interested in the intimacy between two people sitting around a piece of furniture, and then later, the intimacy between a person and the furniture itself. By exploring the strength of intimacy between two people, and understanding the role of furniture in intimate relationships, I was able to craft a dining table for one person that allows this intimacy to be felt and shared the table itself. Somehow when left alone to with an inanimate object, a relationship blossoms.
material exploration
Here I explored the malleability of plastic melted by a heat gun. When the plastic was hot enough, it would turn from solid to liquid and attach itself firmly onto another piece of plastic.
push and pull away The following pages dive deeper into the intimacy between two people sharing a meal. What happens when an intimate pair share an electric touch? How do two strangers react to the same situation?
Foreign skin is always has a surprising texture.
That’s all for now folks!