Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

Objects in Flux
[Figure 3-2]
FIX counter, 2004.
Image is author’s own.
1/ Each primary artist was teamed
with five or six supporting artists. The
term ‘working bee’ was used by Spiros
to refer to these groups of supporting
artists. The FIX working bee consisted
of Carly Fisher, Jophes Fleming, Star-
lie Giekie, Susan Jacobs and Marcus
Keating.
2/ Each member of the FIX work-
ing bee was given a cap with ‘FIX’
embroidered on the front. The team
was asked to wear these caps while
staffing the repair centre.
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primary artists was assigned
a character from the
children’s rhyme ‘There’s a
hole in the bucket’. These
characters were: Henry,
Eliza, Failure, Fix and the
Bucket. Panigirakas assigned
me the role of Fix.
Within Panigirakas’s structured
curatorial approach
an opportunity arose for
exploring the modification
of everyday objects,
providing a framework
through which objects
could be collected and remade.
The FIX project emerged as a ‘repair centre’ for a material and
social investigation into the remaking of objects.
FIX established a service counter within the exhibition space, staffed
by the FIX ‘working bee’. 1 The FIX team (myself and the working
bee) accepted ‘problems’ from exhibition visitors and attempted
to ‘fix’ these problems. I promoted FIX as having expertise in ‘all
aspects of problem solving and repairs: mechanical, technological,
personal, inter-personal, material’. People leaving objects for repair
were required to sign a submission form, giving the FIX team the authority
to perform modifications to the items as they saw fit. Members
of the working bee were encouraged to think of ‘fixing’ as broadly as
possible, with emphasis placed on the modification of the object rather
than its restoration to some original condition.
Through the masquerade of a ‘repair centre’, with counter, signage,
service bell, uniformed staff, 2 and consent forms reproduced in carbon
copy, FIX provided participants with a familiar structure and a
pre-scripted role. Participants performed the act of having something
repaired while being fully aware that this was not an ordinary repair
centre. The highly structured nature of this interaction helped produce
a space where something unknown could take place, where participants
could consciously give up control of their possessions, allowing