Lauraine Mak's MFA Defence: Units of Measure

Friday, November 3, 2023 | 1:30 PM
Room 4390 – SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Lauraine Mak's Units of Measure is a large-scale colour swatch composed of 192 vacuum formed panels made from the disassembled parts of a model toy car. Each panel is painted a unique colour and is assigned a name. A commercial length video, presented on an adjacent wall, continuously flashes ribbons of colour. The work in its total configuration is akin to a paint store and invites the viewer to decide which panels they are drawn to, subjecting them to a process of selection. The panels are presented in an arbitrary taxonomic system, as they are each assigned with illogical names that do not objectively describe the colours. Wittgenstein’s language-games and the philosophical notion of a proper name are explored by looking at the language prescribed to commodities. The hyper-proliferation of this language produces a new ‘consumerist language’ devoid of meaning.

Keywords: colour, configuration, proper names, language, language-games