STAND-IN
A Stand-In takes the place of something else. A look-alike. A version of something. A substitute.
Assignment description:
Create a series of photographs of stand-ins or substitutes of everyday objects (ie. fire hydrant, trash can, cell phone, fork, tree, lamp, leaf, rock, shoes, doormat)
Guiding Questions:
Is it important for the stand-in to have the same function as the original? Is a stand-in suppose to look the same as the original? Is the purpose of a stand-in to blend in? Is a stand-in a fake? What will the stand-in be made out of? How is the stand-in made? What size is the stand-in? (discussions about ephemerality, archivalness, illusion, function)
ASSIGNMENT:
3 Stand-Ins, 3 Photographs of each Stand-In: One photo should be of the object with a neutral background, another should be of the original object in its place, and the last one should be of the object standing in for the original)
Substitute: a person or thing acting or serving in place of another.
I'm interested in the idea of substituting something to serve in a place of something else. Thomas Demand creates objects out of paper instead of using ready-made objects as subjects in his photographs.
I want students to think about what a substitute or stand-in is and what their purpose is suppose to be. What is the difference between the replica and the original? Does the replica serve the same function as the original? What is the purpose of the replica? What happens when we replace objects with substitutes?
We see replicas, and stand-ins all of the time. Just today I noticed a fake rock in my neighbor's yard that acts as a coverup for an electrical box. In the case of this fake rock, the stand-in was meant to be invisible. It served a purpose that the original couldn't. A rock wouldn't fit over the box and would be far too heavy to lift. Therefore, the stand-in was doing something the original couldn't do.
Thomas Demand
Thomas Demand is a photographer and sculptor who makes photographs of life-sized constructed paper simulations of the world.
"The scale of his models enables him to physically relate to them as if to the original object or scene – a model bath is big enough to sit in and a forest clearing is large enough to enter and walk through. Demand’s working process therefore enables him to have physical encounters with things, places and times that exist elsewhere or in the past."
