The prompt for this project was to create a drinking vessel for the transport of liquid. The approach was to examine the relationship of form and content in the container as an object. This was inspired by Hegel’s Lectures on Fine Art, specifically his discussion of adequacy in the relationship of form in content, and symbols as relevant to art.
Typically, it is the vessel that determines the form of the content; the water takes the shape, color, and finish, of the bottle. However, in Hegelian terms, this is inadequate. For Hegel, the relationship between form and content is inseparable; the content as only representable in its form with form as a representation of the ideal content. As a drinking vessel, the typical form is defined by function and certainly does not represent its content. Without abandoning function, this drinking vessel instead represents the content adequately; a sensuous existent of content, of water, though not water; the form does not present the content, but rather the shared qualities of said content, this being fluidity, transparency, refraction, etc. For water to represent itself, this form is required; content and form adequacy as inseparability. This unification, Hegel says, is the center of art.
