ANASTASIA FILIPPEOU

Materials Relocated: Cultural Readings of Concrete and Glass Transformations

Tutor: Suzanne Strum. The thesis understands the materials relocation as the redefinition of their own existance. Considering that all materials occur and are distributed within the confines of a system that is defined and constantly affected by the prevailing social and cultural conditions, the term relocation refers to the alteration of an existing system. It reflects the current trend to transcend all rules in the system of expression, during which existing matter is relocated within the system.

Relocation encompasses both the concepts of recycling and regeneration, referring to the preservation of existing matter, while at the same time echoing its potential for redefinition through its liberation from associations and preconceptions. Since there are no general rules that one has to abide to, the expressive quality of materials, just as in the case of objects, forms and ideas, varies in relation to their design and the standpoint from which they are perceived, so long as they keep being relocated within the system that is altogether molded and constantly bombarded by advances of external factors like culture, society and economy. The challenge that is, therefore, endorsed does not only lie in the consideration that design can be applied to a material, although the latter is by definition a designing thing in itself, but also in the appreciation that conventional uses and contextual positions of materials can be shifted, as part of the design concept.