About how we describe things to each other, how we understand and interprete descriptions. If we describe an object visually by a photograph or a drawing, people will in most cases quickly get an idea of how the object looks like. If the description is a blueprint, complete with dimensions, it might take longer time to understand and visualise the object but the blueprint provides information to recreate a quite precise copy.

In all systems of describing there will be a lack of information for a person to get an exact picture of how the described object looks like. In our minds we fill the gaps with our imagination. By adding features in the description we will render the picture to become more and more visual to our selves.

By physically making the described object it is possible for your self and other people to see the picture created in the mind. By then comparing the copy, or recreation, with the original it becomes visual where the description, or the minds interpretation of the description, failed and transformed the original object into something slightly different or very different.

This description is quite precise but is made by eye measure only. The object it describes is unknown to me, and the original piece was revealed after the copy was finished. The Description was made through an email, and there where no more correspondence after this mail about the object.

I am a bit fascinated and disappointed about how accurate the result turned out to be. I would have liked to see more divergences happen along the way. However I find it quite interesting with the small differences as well such as the color, the size of the small black handle fittings. The way the glass is attached to the main piece is quite different from the original. This was probably the most difficult part to describe and the description here is also quite hard to understand.
I would like to use other and less accurate descriptions than this one. Descriptions that are not meant for me specifically. They could for instance be found in a novel or from a conversation next to me in the street. I would not want to leave out the final comparison though, or maybe I would. What interests me most is to visualize the pictures and small bends that are created in the brain, and not as much the way the experiment is made even if it might be important for the aesthetic qualities of the project.


Hannas Description

Ok, the object’s main shape is cubic. The measurements are approximately 130x130x60mm. All the edges and corners are rounded with a radius of ca 4mm. The backside is black. All the other sides are green-turquoise. In the middle of the backside there is a wheel, or a lid with a diameter of ca 50mm. The wheel is about 10mm deep in the middle and lowered in the back of the cube. Around the edge of the hole there is an edge about 1,5 mm wide and high. Around the edge of the wheel itself there’s also a similar edge. It’s 1mm above the hole’s edge and about 2mm wide. The wheel is hollow as I said, end the deepest point is about 10mm, - in the middle, this middle-bottom is about 25mm in diameter, then there’s a sloping part that goes up about 4mm. the slope is 7mm wide. When the slope ends there’s a straight wall up to the edge of the wheel... There is like a handle straight across the wheel that goes all the way down to it’s bottom. It’s about 6mm wide and rounded in the edges.

Ok, was almost everything about the back except for an edge that is rising about 1.5mm high around the whole back: it is about 5mm wide. The back is black. The sides of the cube are ridged with 0.5mm high ridges that are about 3mm wide. They go from the back to the front. The space between them is about 2mm. That gives 24 ridges on one side. The top has a wheel/button in black. It is shaped and sized as a turned upside down knäckform with ridges. But at the top it is hollow... This hole is about 12mm wide. The edges of the whole knäckform shape are 17mm wide. The wheel is in the absolute middle of the top of the cube. Behind it, towards the back there are no ridges. On the front side of the cube, there is a circular transparent plastic lid with the same diameter as the side itself. It is raised about 6mm above the side. Underneath the "lid" there is like a crater sloping down in shiny reflective metallic silver. In the middle of this, at the bottom, there is a pear shaped transparent glass globe with a thread in copper inside. The diameter of the glass globe is about 13mm. Behind, or above this little globe, on the slope towards the top side, there is exactly a similar globe situated about 10mm from the one in the middle.

Ok, around the edge of the transparent circular plastic lid that covers the metallic "crater" there are six points in the edge where the plastic is moulded with little triangular fittings. These are placed evenly around the edge. They are about 6mm deep and 6mm wide at the widest and the deepest, which is inwards the middle of the lid. At their bottoms, inside this edge the surface of the lid goes down, it becomes thinner. This edge is about 6mm.

Ok that’s almost all, except on the two sides, on the right and on the left of the cube, in the middle of each side a handle in grey plastic is fitted with a black hub. The size of the handle is the same as the whole cube, that means that the handle sticker up ca 50 mm above the top of the cube. The handle has a rectangle section and is about 20mm wide and 5 mm thick. It is movable and can also be used as a support for the cube thing. Also, the handle is "double". There are two identical handles on top of each other, in two parallel layers. The cube’s outside is in plastic.

Copenhagen, 2005-11-24

(Right: original, left: copy)