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Out of all of Zittel’s works she introduced at the lecture, the piece I would most want to own would be one of her A-Z Pit Beds. She created this out of a curiosity of what it would be like to personalize a bed by having it below ground level rather than the typical bed which protrudes above the ground. I cannot help but keep on thinking of how much dirt and dust the bed would attract, but I absolutely love the concept of personalizing furniture in order to unify the layout keeping in mind the individual needs and desires. Yet, it provokes thought on questioning the concept of personalization; if someone else comes up with the idea, and I adopt the exact concept, can it really be called personalization? I suppose this is where we can examine the differences between personalization and originality.
One may consider it to be unoriginal to have a copy of Picasso’s starry night hanging in their living room, since countless other home owners likely hang that same exact picture on their walls. However, we can say the same thing for people who have flood lamps, white leather couches, and dark wood coffee tables in their living rooms. Would you say that anyone who contains one of these elements is being ‘unoriginal’? Maybe so, but these furniture items are popular for the sole reason of them being useful to the person that owns the living room. This catering to the individual’s needs makes any furniture piece in the room a result of personalization. While some people may believe that going against the grain and filling their houses with odd furniture pieces is the definition of personalization (and sometimes it is), what really makes anything, especially art, personalized is the fact that it is created and arranged in a way that reflects the creator’s needs and expression. As with most people, this expression and needs will vary from person to person even if just slightly in the form of different arrangements of the same household items, in the same way that two artists may utilize the same type of circles and squares in their paintings but arranging them differently to make those paintings uniquely their own.
Although only some portion in the beginning of Zittel’s lecture was committed to talking about her manmade island, it seems to be one of her works that she is most famous for creating. She has created several ‘island’ pieces, but the one spotlighted during the lecture was her Pocket Property funded by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This structure was a personal island specifically designed to house only a few people. She created this piece then lived on it with some of her friends to make a documentary on what life was like on the island. What inspired Zittel to create this piece was her idea of islands representing autonomy and independence, mitigating and disempowering the influence and control of the larger social system beyond the occupants of the island.
I was raised in Hawaii, which is what made this concept of islands being autonomous and independent particularly interesting to me. The concept also reminds me of an idea that got me thinking during high school when my religion teacher emphasized to us that there is no such thing as independence; no matter how much we try, we will all be subject to interdependence because we are all relying on the resources of others. It is well-known in Hawaii that we desperately rely on the mainland (that’s what we call the rest of the U.S.) for fuel, which is what makes gas prices sky-high in Hawaii. We also rely on the mainland for all sorts of shipments such as particular foods, furniture, and especially tourism to keep our economy afloat. Clearly, we are very interdependent and would lose the necessities we enjoy now if we were to cut ourselves off from the mainland. But how much of it is really necessary? Zittel’s experiment with the island seems to me an example of Hawaii pre-colonization from ‘foreigners’. I see Pocket Property as proof that autonomous life is possible without the larger social system of the United States as a whole controlling the island (if Pocket Property grew its own food).
Yet, I think a big issue is not being addressed here: it doesn’t matter how independent a community or person is, because no matter how little interdependency there is, over time, influence through direct or indirect interaction is unavoidable. Personally, a fantasy I always retreat to when I can’t stop thinking of all the crap in the world is this idea of a completely secluded island in which there is no war, no violence, no prejudices and everyone is intelligent and kind. Even if this dream were achieved on some island, it doesn’t change the fact that others will affect our community. What if all the other countries of the world are in a war and one leader decides they want to nuclear bomb the rest of the world? What if a peaceful, independent island makes us an easy target for takeover (I mean, hey, it’s happened before)? On the global scale, beyond the individual, beyond Pocket Property and beyond Hawaii, there are so many other communities filled with people who have or will have a vested interest in what we do in our own little corner of the world; for our own sake, we cannot forget this. By this perspective, no matter what, we are interdependent in the sense that our way of life depends on the choices of others.
As admirable as it may seem, instead of trying to seclude ourselves to the autonomous life, we should opt to be kept in the loop and interact in order to have an influence in the decisions the larger community makes. But not to fear: personalization and individuality does not need to be burdened by the existence of our interdependency. Through expression, including artistic expression as practiced by Andrea Zittel, it is possible to maintain our unique personalities despite our dependence on others.
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