Katya Fedotova

Measurements #1.1
mixed media
11 x 14 in.

Measurements #1.3
mixed media
9 x 11 in.

As you see before you, perfectly preserved by the modern measurement endowment and life-museum is the framed works that were rescued from the home of inventor of the Modern Measurement System. On the photographs you can see scattered among the wall in original order are relics of a time long past; Images of a system of spatial rationalization based on what in our perception are meaningless antiques, mysterious icons, and ridiculous fetishes. To the generations of the 20th century, however, these items where in no way an enigma but so relevant to the lived experience of every day that the rest of the world was composed of dialectic comparisons
to these very markers of volume we call objects.

Displayed here are the first drafts that led to the development of the modern system of comparative measurement. The challenge was in relating markers of increasing and sufficient relevancy to the social and cultural experience of the target population, while removing from the common lexicon these relics of the past which were already becoming extinct, making spatial reckoning a more and more abstract process.

Finally, we see here a copy of the collection of completed comparative frameworks for spatial thought; Our current cornerstone to comparative measurement. These objects, define our lives to this day, we use them to size up the world around us, to discern greatness, smallness, and what fits-in. We owe a great deal to this research, these objects, sketched here before you, normalized and standardized life today as we know it.

© Katya Fedotova