material exploration: non – contact work.

I decided to select the material of pasta to work with in my non-contact hours. This was mainly due to the many ways it can be worked with and how its properties can change with each manipulation. The four ways I decided to work with pasta are; sheets of fresh home made pasta, home made pasta cut into fettuccini, dry shop bought pasta, cooked and dry shop bought pasta, cooked with tomato sauce.

#1






My plan was to use fresh pasta sheets to create a bodice for the body. I'd hoped that the pasta would dry out and create a kind of mould around the body. This didn’t work at all as when I took it off the body it crumbled in my hands. This made putting it on quite difficult. Its property completely changed when I tried to pick it up and pull it over my head, it broke up into small sections making it not at all garment like. My belief is if there is no residue or product left on the body it cannot be considered wearing it. This was the case with this investigation.


#2






This is my investigation using dry cooked pasta without sauce. I draped the pasta over the body to create another bodice / top. The majority of the pasta fell off the side of the body as I was placing it on there. The model was my sister and she felt completely uneasy about the slimy pasta on her body. She said, “luckily I know it’s pasta, otherwise I would have thought it was worms. Putting the pasta on over my head like I would a normal top or jumper it felt slimy, stringy, gooey, slippery but at the same time extremely sticky. Once most of the pasta fell away there was a lot left over in my hair, stuck between the strands imitating hair itself. Considering there is a left over residue is it still a garment? I wouldn’t call it a garment, but it is defiantly an adornment, even though it has adorned a different part of the body that was intended. Maybe this is the transition between putting on a garment and wearing a garment.

#3






I piled the dry cooked pasta with sauce on top of the body to create another top. Unlike the pasta without sauce it didn’t fall off the body. The tomato acted as a bonding agent and helped hold the pasta to the body. ‘Putting on’ this top was a similar sensation to the cooked pasta without sauce, but not as sticky and a lot more slimy. There was a lot more residue left over from this ‘garment’. It again make me think that the residue does make it a garment. But it isn’t in the intended area. Not much of the pasta actually made it past my neck, making it much more of a hat than the intended top.

#4

I'm still in the process of creating my fourth garment. I'll upload it as soon as its done.