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Posted by Lloyd on Jul 26, '07 5:27 AM for everyone

 Jochem Hendricks together with 12 assistants, counted 3,281,579 grains of sand. This took approximately 1,000 hours. The hand-picked grains are/were exhibited in an egg-shaped glass holder on a glass plate in a large display case in the foyer of the Frankfurt's Museum of Applied Arts.

"On the outside the grains of sand cannot be told apart. The grains of sand represent the arduous task work only in as much as you know that the pile of sand is a product of counting. And due to the fact that you know that it took about 1,000 hours to count them, the grains also represent the hours of labor. Now they're considered not so much as dirt, but as the result of great effort"

There cannot be many more senseless tasks than counting grains of sand. After all, a small pile of sand is neither a useful nor an attractive product. Such a senseless task of counting becomes meaningful only by the fact that it presents itself—by way of the sand pile—as art. «Eye drawings» and «Grains of Sand» get round the criterion of inter-subjectivity in natural science, by which a scientific work is considered objective only if it can be reproduced under another set of identical conditions: anybody could produce eye drawings using Hendricks’ process and anybody could count the grains of sand again if they have any doubts that there really are 3,281, 579 grains of sand, or anything really.

Some people really do have too much time on their hands or eyes.

The mind boogles.
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26 CommentsChronological   Reverse   Threaded
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reggaeiceman wrote on Jul 26, '07
hmmm
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jonthegeologist wrote on Jul 26, '07
so it becomes art simply because we know there are c. 3million grains. Interesting.

Have they extrapolated this to find out the number of grains of sand on a beach?
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ksrasra wrote on Jul 26, '07
Is that a picture of it above? That dish doesn't look egg-shaped...
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drcurry wrote on Jul 26, '07
[Surreptitiously blows on the pile.]
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skinflaps wrote on Jul 26, '07
ksrasra said
Is that a picture of it above? That dish doesn't look egg-shaped...
That's from his site. Egg shaped
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moominply wrote on Jul 26, '07, edited on Jul 26, '07
If I was him, I'd jusy say I'd spent the time. No-one's gonna check. Maybe that's why I'm not a conceptual artist.

In any case, it becomes art not because we know the number of grains, but because someone says it's art. It becomes kinda interesting because someone says they know the exact number of sand grains in the pile... but I don't think that's necessarily the same.

Art, engineering, design... all these false categories. Hey ho.
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phoenixlives wrote on Jul 26, '07
ksrasra said
Is that a picture of it above? That dish doesn't look egg-shaped...
It's based on a very circular egg.
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ksrasra wrote on Jul 26, '07
flattened egg. they should serve that in restaurants.
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gnomethang wrote on Jul 26, '07
What was the American Kid's film with the magic telephone box that was used to engage disaffected and bored youth?.
There was a chap who wanted to force them to do just this: Pick a load of sand out of the wall, and then move it from the pile to the next with a pair of tweezers.
I remember that he didn't have a face.
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jinbish wrote on Jul 26, '07, edited on Jul 26, '07
gnomethang said
magic telephone
Telephone!?!?

I think you mean the Phantom Tollbooth which is based on the book of the same name by Norton Juster.

The Demon that tricked Milo into moving a pile of sand from here to there was called the Terrible Trivium: "Demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit."

Come to think of it, it's probably required reading for pun loving bakers.
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gnomethang wrote on Jul 26, '07
I did say "telephone box" which is almost UK-equiv-tech.

Nevertheless, your detailed answer is astonishingly good!. No wonder my IMDB searches yielded nothing.

He had a car stuck in 'The Doldrums' too, did he not?

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jinbish wrote on Jul 26, '07
gnomethang said
I did say "telephone box"
Yeah - close enough.

I loved it as a kid (film and book) and I re-read the book not that long ago.

"Don't say there's nothing to do in the Dol - drums...". He was stuck there until Tock the watchdog finds him and is appalled: "It's bad enough wasting time - without killing it!" and convinces him to start thinking...

er...

Ok. I'm a little bit too enthusiastic about this. I'll be quiet now.
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ksrasra wrote on Jul 27, '07
"AND THAT, FOLKS, IS HOW HE COMES TO BE A DOCTOR TODAY!"

(sorry for yelling)
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halfsure wrote on Jul 27, '07
Note: Taking a painting to a museum of Applied Art is about like taking a writer of poetry to ...
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morninglemon wrote on Jul 27, '07
[+] for the Phantom Tollbooth mention.
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jinbish wrote on Jul 29, '07
ksrasra said
THAT, FOLKS
Yeah - lots of people that know me wonder about that too... I can't help it if my specialist subject is cartoons!
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worldgineer wrote on Jul 29, '07
One shouldn't jump to conclusions - it's a long swim back.
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worldgineer wrote on Jul 29, '07
This sounds like a very good use for interns.
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skinflaps wrote on Aug 9, '07
Presuming that picture of sand is symmetrical, I believe he's 4 short.
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worldgineer wrote on Apr 14, '10
WTF!? I just googled //"jump to conclusions" "long swim back" tollbooth// and this was the first link. Is the Internet far too small, or does Google know my browsing patterns in a creepy sort of way? Or maybe I'm the only one that knows that quote.
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skinflaps wrote on Apr 15, '10
Heh!
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