Having spoken with Richard at length about the consideration of materials in the buildings and their impact on thresholds, I decided to focus firstly on the door handle which could be considered a tactile gateway to a threshold for the user.
The quality of the materials which make up the door handle are the solidness and coldness of the steel. The handle, touched frequently, can undergo an alteration of the material qualities of the steel itself through the warm of a hand - the remnants of human activity.
I was reminded by this of Hélio Oiticica's stance that 'the work is born from a mere touch of matter'. This lead me to question what would happen if the material which made or covered the handle was altered too. How would this adapt to human touch? How could a material record traces of human use?
This line of questioning stemmed the thoughts of creating a wax handle which could become malleable when touched and heated, clearly recording human use.
The handle itself was created by melting wax candles and mixing this with coloured pigments to add a colour to the wax. This was then poured over a door handle several times to create a thick additive layer to the door handle which ideally will melt slightly when touched to alter the qualities and form.
Having created this handle, I wish to create a video piece which will record the way that the material and handle adapts to the touch of a person and to understand whether this relates to the general wear a door handle has to endure or whether this is intensified by the change in material and qualities.
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