Really quite an interesting, minimalist shape.

When Iain bought this knife block in a charity shop four years ago he could of course not know thatonly two of his knifes would fit in it. Annoying! I guess you would just assume that a knife block would hold most normal knife sizes, wouldn’t you? And even if you didn’t, what were you supposed to do about it, bring your kitchen knifes with you to the shop to try them in? (A suspicion that I can’t prove, is that the block ended up in the charity shop in the first place, precisely because someones knifes didn’t fit in it).

You can still see the original shape, but now in a Rorschach kind of way.

What triggered me into making this sculpture was the new shapethat I immediately saw hiding inside the wooden block, and the simplicity with which I could liberate it. Just a slice straight through it, a slight bevel to the edges, some glue and there you go. The added meaning that a knife block gains when it assumes the shape of a stealth bomber or fighter drone is something else. This is an instance of random poetry which is often a feature of everyday art, working a bit like associative parlour games or theatre exercises. A+G=? More than suggesting a specific reading I think simple assemblages like this one work more like a starting point for thinking about the phenomena involved. The drone in the kitchen – the everyday precense of war – how we rely on weapons (being used somewhere) for us to be able to continue our cozy everyday life – how weapons become something very ordinary in some times and environments – how kitchen knifes can of course also be seen as weapons.

Hoovering over your head like a threatening shadow as you fry your breakfast eggs.

I suggested to Iain, that if he was really wild he could stick magnet knife hanger strips under it, to hang his knives from, so that if he hung it high over his kitchen workbench, he could just reach up and grab one when he needed it. I couldn’t do that myself of course, for reasons of liability. Imagine what horrible things could happen if the knife you returned to the block didn’t catch properly and fell down, or if you accidentally dislodged more than one knife when you reached for only one of them… but then again, imagine what horrible things could happen if you sent unmanned robot drones armed with explosive missiles and controlled by jumpy twenty-somethings to a foreign desert search for baddies that looked mostly like everyone else in that area?

Object no. 56