Glitches in the System
Unpacking new underwear, ubiquitous objects that we don’t notice, and other thoughts on art this week
Every so often I come across an artist whose work completely aligns with the thoughts in my head at that moment in time. It happened again yesterday after I had removed the plastic packaging around the new underwear I bought last week. For some reason this time I didn’t just mindlessly strip it all away, but instead got caught up in looking at the tiny paddle tags as I removed them from the bras, and studied the curved shapes of the hangers holding the knickers.
None of this packaging is strictly necessary, but it does help retailers to display their wares in a particular way that entices us to consume them. There’s little that we can do with this plastic packaging once we get our goods home, except to pop it straight in the bin. It doesn’t have another function. Some of it can’t even be recycled. I don’t know about you but I’ve never really looked closely at these objects, which exist in the world as secondary supports for other things that are being consumed. Their usefulness is very short-lived.
Whether we consciously clock them or not, we are all (weirdly) familiar with their forms and shapes. Objects like these have passed through all our hands and we have had to process them in…
