This class will be a series of material investigations in relation to the human body at rest. Each student will design, build, and critically analyze a custom bed frame that exploits the inherent properties of a singular material—ash wood—across a spectrum of rigid and flexible structures. Laboratory testing and creative work will be augmented by lectures on the cultural history of “the bed” as a site of function, fantasy, aesthetics, and politics, from Egypt and the Bauhaus to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. One larger goal (among many) in the class will be to compare methods of evaluation in visual art, engineering, social policy, and the occult.
Princeton students make their beds from Lewis Center for the Arts on Vimeo.
