February 24, Mandy introduces "Homebound" by Mona Hatoum

1. Details of the work

• Artist: Mona Hatoum
• Title: Homebound
• Year: 2000
• Medium: Installation
– Kitchen utensils
– furniture
– electric wire
– light bulbs
– computerised dimmer switch
– amplifier,
– speakers
Dimensions: Variable


2. How the work express the theme – Home

1) Background of the artist:
-born in a Palestinian family in Lebanon(1952)- a holiday trip to London (1975)
-unable to return home due to the war in Lebanon
-forced to stay in London

Ø Reasonably, it would greatly influence her approach to creating art.

2) Main object: Kitchen
1.
– a formica kitchen table with folding leaves
– chrome kitchen chairs
– an elegant armchair
– a bench
– two children's chairs
– a clothes stand
– a trolley
– a standard lamp without a shade

• all above are postwar furnishings
• require elegance, functionality and stackability
Ø it remind us about the old day, the home we once lived
Ø it also induce us to know more about the artist’s home, even the artist’s homeland-Lebanon

2.

– a metal bed
– two small metal boxes with mesh apertures
– a birdcage

From the above stuff, we can see that:
• Nothing is soft
• Just the bare bones
Ø Give us a feeling of indifferent and cold
Ø Induce us to imagine the artist’s life after she cannot return home and force to stay in London. And we could feel that the life might be indifferent and cold, and nothing could comfort her.

3.
– the locomotive from a child's train set

• We can feel that the ocomotive from a child's train set is something forlorn amongst all the setting, very different from the whole installation,
• It seems like it does not belong to here, and it came here by accident or someone left it here
Ø This artwork expressing artist’s emotion about London. Because she was unable to return home due to the civil war and forced to stay in London since 1975, but she is not actually belonging to London.


• Also the artist may suffer the state of exile and displacement
• Struggle about whether she should -regards London as “home” or temporary shelter -has an unsettled sense of being home and homeless


4.
• Homebound includes a large collection of household objects linked with electricity behind a barbed-wire fence. From the picture we can see that the wire barrier keeps the visitors from touching the electrified metal household objects.

• Mona Hatoum said it hinted at being imprisoned by domesticity or even living under house arrest. “Or, I mean, you could see it as somebody who is being denied the homeland—or the return home,” she added.

This can arouse sympathy between audiences and artists.
Ø Audiences’ feeling :
The wire barrier keeps the visitors from touching the electrified metal household objects
Ø artist’s feeling
The war separated artist from her home and family



5.
The tableau is electrified by copper cables that across the furniture and floor

• electrical currents make the small light bulbs periodically illuminating
• Current controlled by a software program to alter frequency and intensity of light, flickering on and off in random sequence
• Speakers amplify the crackling sound of electricity coursing through wires and metal objects
Ø flickering light and annoying sound of current represent for the wars, political instability of her homeland


3) Relevant art works--Home, 1999

Relevant art works– Sous Tension, 1999

Mona Hatoum has addressed and electrified the kitchen situation in three different variation: besides the ‘homebound ’in 2000, there are “home” in 1999 and “sous tension” in 1999

“sous tension” title means 'under tension' but the meaning is actually 'electrified'.

In these three artworks, the artist emphasizes the dangerous, current-carrying wiring in the work. Moreover the installation emits a loud, buzzing noise, a telltale sign of the electricity flowing through the objects. The scattered articles seem to almost come alive.

• Similarities
– a rectangular table behind a wire fence
– cluttered by the same kind of mechanical kitchen implements
– light and buzz with an audible electrical current
– frightening in the same way
– but the exact nature of the threat remains unclear
Ø Electrified and behind wire, suggests that gender itself may be a dangerous territory, as well as a form of exile.


4) Other issues raised by the work & Comment:

• This artwork combines aesthetics with questions of a political and social nature
– personal experiences
– identity
– Politics and relationship
– Gender

And I will focus on Gender:

“I see kitchen utensils as exotic objects…...Being raised in a culture where women have to be taught the art of cooking as part of the process of being primed for marriage, I had an antagonistic attitude to all of that” -- Mona Hatoum, Domestic Disturbance

- we can see that the artist trying to challenge the power relationship along gender divide
-starkly highlight people's lack of choice and power


5) Why this work interests you/your own opinion of it

This art work Attract me in the very beginning because
• the Surrealist penchant
• the feeling of holy and stillness.
• domestic area leads to feminine
• the kitchen utensils have animistic qualities

But actually, when I searched for more and more information about the art work, I found that it is totally different from my first feeling
-it give us an disturbing, unstable and dangerous feelings-it causes great contrast to conventional concept of kitchen: safe, fragrant-viewers: physical and psychological disturbance, contradict to originally expectations


6) Key quote about the work

• Where are the people who once lived in this strange, uncomfortable home? They have either escaped its confines or been evicted from it; the wire fence exists either to protect the viewer on the outside or to hold in the family. A sense of unknown catastrophe emanates from the place. Presumably the scene contains clues to some mysterious past events, if we only knew how to decipher them.
• There’s a lot of ambiguity to this work, and that may be the point. Lacking a definitive frame of reference, Homebound refuses to moralize about a particular culture or to name the names of either the oppressor or the oppressed.
--Alix Ohlin, Home and Away:
The Strange Surrealism of Mona Hatoum


7) Reference

Website:
• http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/documenta/11/frid/e-hatoum.htm
• http://www.daratalfunun.org/main/activit/curentl/mona_hatoum/2.htm
• http://www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/The-shock-value-of-a-sharper-look-at-everyday-objects/2005/03/21/1111253955447.html
• http://www.whitecube.com/artists/hatoum/texts/99/
Book:
• Michael,Archer. Mona Hatoum. London : Phaidon Press, 1997.
• Brett, Guy Zegher, M. Catherine de Hatoum, Mona. Mona Hatoum. VT : Distributed by Storey Pub., c2001
Videorecording:
• Sam, Flynn. Mona Hatoum. London: Illuminations, 2005


8) Question

• "Homebound is a very ambiguous title. It can mean bound for home, somebody going home. Or somebody who is bound by their home, as in house arrest. Or the confinement of home, especially for women for whom household chores become a confining thing. But it really depends on you.”--Mona Hatoum
u In your opinion, what kind of attitudes to home is expressed in Mona Hatoum’s Homebound? One of the upper description or any other attitude? And how do you feel about your home?

In my opinion, it can be both bond for home and the confinement of home.
Ø Because Mona Hatoum was unable to return home due to the civil war in Lebanon and was forced to stay in London since 1975, so she would really want to go back home. Besides, she strongly against that the female should stay at home for a long time in order to take care of the family, so it could also be a confining thing.

For me, home is a port of shelter from the storm, because my parents and my home always there for me.