Rosie Edwards
Pile, 2012
An object incites an action.
Subservient to that object, I act upon its silent prompt.
I make some calculations, pre-written in its standard sizing: 2440 x 1220 mm. I count 64 holes across its horizontal axis, 128 along its vertical. Multiplier and multiplicand: the solution, 8192.
With this quantity determined I seek out the required provisions.
Affronted with a choice of hues I am stopped in my tracks: 27 standard tones, 6 special tones and one choice of ‘mixed assortment’.
Scanning the list of names for clues I try not to succumb to the seductive power of their poetic wiles: Diamond Clear; Tropical Teal; Onyx Black; Blush; Periwinkle.
I liaise with ‘The Object’ and await further instruction.
‘Multi-colour’, I conclude from the silence: ‘The Object’ has spoken.
One bag of each tone - it has been decided.
I place a hasty order:
(27 + 6 + 1) x 100
= 3400.
4792 remain.
Too hasty, I concede: the puzzle less than half solved! An expensive, and painful, mistake to behold (given that funds are limited).
Glancing in the mirror to witness my disarray I acknowledge the ephemera that has accumulated around its frame: a yellow card with the words, ‘Turn It Around’, tucked in upside down in the top left hand corner; below it, a sparkly ‘Wow Frog’ sticker; two passport photos from two years and two months ago (is that still me?) and a cut out Farrow and Ball colour sample, its name written beneath its shaded lozenge: ‘All White’.
‘All White’ - of course! How did I not hear it before?
White: the colour of all colours in one.
A white monochrome: an emulsion of 8192 elements, mounted on The Object’s pre-determined framework...
I should have known it instinctively.
I set about placing a new order:
Products marked *** are not available in the desired quantity or stock: an obstacle I had not envisaged.
Trying not to be disheartened, I reduce the quantity by 1 and click to update the order.
Products marked *** are not available in the desired quantity or stock.
The message reappears to taunt me.
I continue to drop the quantity by 1, updating the order each time until - eventually - the message ceases to come.
2 is the quantity permitted to me.
2 x 100 = 200.
What if pink was the colour of all colours in one, would that glean more joy?
5 is the quantity of pink permitted to me.
If The Object is in cahoots with the order form, what is it that It sees that I can’t?
Using the feedback loops that emerge through the process of decision making,
‘Pile’ arrives as an installation whose form and format depends on an encounter with limiting factors and the imposition of external constraints.
Stock levels deplete, master plans go under, but new systems of logic must be devised.
