Fée Brandt is an international student who majors in Integrated design and studies in Parsons School of design. She aims to create a new art genre combining performing art and fine art, and always looks for opportunities to learn new skills and knowledge. She loves creating cartoon characters in imaginative worlds inspired by the natures and cultures around her. She would like to learn more about character and concept art design, Musicals theatre, fictional story writing and performing art.
A highlighted artwork she made during her first semester of Parsons year 1 was ” Good & Better” for her ” building the difference in relationship” project for Space and Materiality class with Professor Kimberly Tate. (Documented photos attached below)
Materials used:
- A glass jar with a metal cap
- Paper
- Transparent plastic
- Wires
- String
- Candies
Fée describes this artwork as ” a game that shows the difference in players’ relationship and “hurts” the players.”
On the paper in front of the artwork, it demonstrates the rules of the game:
“You Only Have One Choice. You can…
EITHER choose one jar and take one (candy);
OR take one (candy) from each jar at the same time.”
And on the jars, one has a tag says ” Good” and “Better” on the other, juxtaposed with good and better candies inside.
The “Good” candies taste good but have common packages, while the “Better” candies have colorful packages but not necessarily taste good.
There are holes on the cap for people to go through to take caddies, however, both holes have teeth shaped guards, and it’s the main stratagem of this tricky game.
The concept of this trick is that the teeth let people’s hands through to grab candies but prevent them out by hurting them, but people can also let their hands out if they use another hand to push the teeth while pulling out. And that enables the concept of the game to work:
If the player chooses to only take one jar’s candy, they have the choice to pick between “good” or “better” and can get the candy out without hurting their hand.
But if the player chooses to have both jar’s candy cause by greedy, they will be stacked and end up hurt and maybe get none of the candies out, or even construct an outside relationship where they ask for others’ help.
This game reflects reality, individuals can achieve dreams independently, but when they want more than they can achieve, when greedy wins, a relationship is built, involving deals, emotions, competition, betrays and so on.
Fée’s concept is inspired by a scene from a movie about a group of people escaping a room.
In the movie, the woman is stacked in this device because everyone betrayed her and this machine requires two people. So Fée was inspired by this device of trust and developed her greedy device.
During Fée’s presentation, a lot of people participate in the game because of the eye-catching candies. During the games, 60% of the people choose to take one jar’s candy because they don’t think that the pain equalizes with the happiness gained from the candies. 40% of the people chose to have two jars’ candies because they really want the candies, and they don’t think it’s going to hurt that much (but it hurts.) On that data, most of them try to use force to get their hands put and end up having really hurt their hands and even drop the candy. Few of them set up a deal with the instructor( Fée) “if you help me to get my hand out, I give you one of my candy.”
As an interactive choice-based art piece, the results are very interesting, and Fée is very satisfied with it. But she would like to improve the material she is using if she has to do it again, because, at the end of the presentation, the teeth banded because too many players have played it, and also many of them chose to use force to pull out. If Fée has another chance to remake, she is considering to use a thicker plastic which has a reflective metal-like surface, because she wants to scare the player with the appearance of the teeth but still protect the safety of players while preventing itself from breaking.
This project suits Fée’s current Studio’s class’s theme– identity because it’s a device that demonstrates a component of identity according to the path people they choose to take. Any path taking can be and is a shift in people’s identity.
This project means a lot to Fée because when teacher ask students what relation they want to show through making a device, Fée thought about how her definition of friendship has silently changed as she grew up, it’s no longer just “Best Friend Forever” in kindergarten and primary school anymore. Friends for benefits exits, because of the choice between dream or greedy, between good and better or both. This device is Fée’s representation of epiphany on changes in growth, which growth is an essential and necessary element of identity building.
It’s also a very challenging project for Fée, because her major approach in Art is 2D, and now teacher wants her to transform a concept let’s call it 0D to something a 3D device and interact with the public which then becomes 4D. Crossing through dimensions, physicalizing a concept in a way that its viewers understand the intention was challenging because it requires lots of planning and constructing within limited time and materials. Although it’s challenging, the skill of conceptualizing and physicalizing helped her with many of her other project such as her studio 1 class of making a fake monument that interacts with the public using sounds.
Fée really preferred the theme of identity because she herself is confused and is on her journey of clarifying her identity. Fée is a female who comes from multiple cultures and educational systems and is currently going through a lot of changes brought by growth and new environment. A process of “SOUL SEARCHING” will help Fée brighten her path and interests her.
Fée also did some additional research that makes her perceive her project in a different way.
The first additional research is a strong connection between Fée’s project and Felix Gonzalez Torrez’s candy installation. The idea of every piece of candy being spread through audiences’ hands and the audiences get to keep part of the candy. Interplaying with the idea of public and private, Gonzalez Torrez challenge the concept of artwork being not interactive or not touchable.
https://www.wmagazine.com/story/felix-gonzalez-torres-candy-the-met-breuer
Another additional research is the Monkey trap. Monkey as an active and shrewd animal, it would be very difficult to capture them. But human discovered the weakness of them being greedy and stubborn. The trap is simply constructed– it is a hole dug underground sized just big enough for the monkey to put his hand in. Inside the hole, there is a fruit as the bait. Monkey get stuck because once they grabbed the bait, their hands in a fit can no longer get out of the hole, but they are too greedy and stubborn to let it go, so they keep trying till people caught them. This is strongly linked to Fée’s project playing the idea of desire and choices.
