Cultural Logic of Objects:
Geo-Positioning the Rehal

This projects explored embedded social, utilitarian, and cultural meaning of the Rehal (Quran stand) through form and function. The project intersects analogue and digital forms of making. Students produced the frame of the stand from a single pine board through a process of hand chiseling the central hinges (knuckles) and splitting the two ends in half. The physical computing components consist of a servo (actuator) and a magnetometer (sensor). In this project students considered Baudrillard’s delineation of functional/non-functional objects and value-making processes of objects. This geo-positioned Rehal, which can only be used when pointed to the Ka’ba, signifies the embedded cultural meaning of the object through its own physical function. Provoked by and in response to these defined parameters, wherein the objects physical function is dependent upon its cultural significance, students were challenged to develop meaning and reconsider function through materiality, form, surface, and space.

——

MFA in Design Studies
Course Title: DESI 611 Studio One
Faculty: Diane Derr

——

Reema Abu Hassan / Nada Al-Kharashi / Asma Derouiche / Johana Nasreen / Zeinah Zahir / Abir Zakzok