The Making of Chaos

Is it possible to create Chaos? Is the human act of creating not already something that brings structure and order? How does the relationship between Order and Chaos work? With this project, I tried to give an answer to these questions.

But let’s start from the Beginning: everything started with cauliflower. This was the vegetable I had chosen for our theme “Kopfsalat” (which in German means both lettuce and a mess in your head ). Soon I discovered that the spiral structure of the cauliflower follows the golden ratio. Something that I had thought completely casual and chaotic was really following a mathematical constant of phi = 1,618.

I was so fascinated by my discovery, I asked myself how I could convey the duality of Chaos and Order in my project. I began looking for a way to create the most casual and chaotic shapes and soon found the answer in free wax casting: 

By touching cold water, the molten wax solidifies instantly, taking on a new and different shape every time. Later, I had the wax cast in brass, and I realised that I could easily make spoons of those shapes. Moreover, the spoon would be a perfect way to unite Chaos (the scoop) and Order (the handle). Only through both of them does the spoon have its function.

Nonetheless, there are two exceptions in my collection: two spoons that did not need a handle to be recognisable as such. Their shape alone already suggested their function; no intervention of mine was necessary. The Chaos had been vanquished through my explanation “Those are spoons”.

I wanted to create order from chaos by combining them. Through the function I have given them by calling them spoons, they cannot be seen as elements of chaos anymore, for they have become objects of daily use.