Day 1: The Carrot Revolution

"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution." ~ Paul Cezanne

What is a Hand Tool?

The first thing my class was tasked with, was defining what we thought each aspect of our brief meant, so we split into three groups, one tackling Surrealism, one tackling metal, and ours tackling hand tools. Going into it, we thought it would be relatively simple. This was until we looked up the dictionary definition of a hand tool and immediately disagreed with it. In our defence, it's wrong.

The Oxford Languages dictionary defines a hand tool as:

"a tool held in the hand and operated without electricity or other power."

However, if it's operated without electricity, where does that put tools such as an electric drill? So currently we are left with a tool such as a hammer.

But it goes on to say that the tool cannot be operated using 'other power'. Power is just how much energy is transferred within a time period, for example using a hammer would transfer chemical energy to kinetic and wasted energy. Now we are left with a hammer we cannot pick up. Or a paperweight.

Following this, we decided to create our own definition of a hand tool by each writing our own and then combining them, leaving us with:

"A piece of equipment that cannot function without hands and which also extends the capabilities of the hands; used to alter surroundings."

Now we had our longer (but more agreed-upon) definition, we began attempting to categorise objects into hand tools and non-hand tools. Despite our new definition, this remained a difficult task, made all the harder when we were asked by our lecturer: "if I pick up this chair and use it to hammer something, does that make it a hand tool?" I can safely say I am still unsure but would prefer to say no. After this, we created a third category of 'maybe a hand tool' which immediately led to us being able to justify a lot more objects as being a hand tool. Now that we has more of an understanding of what a hand tool maybe was, we were able to move on to the next task.

My classmate modelling the carrot handbag

Creating Surreal Metal Hand Tools

Carrots do contain some metal which (apparently) causes them to spark in the microwave. I say apparently as I do not currently own a microwave that I can easily see into, or any vegetables to test the theory on.

Despite this, my first physical investigation was looking into surrealism and not metal - the brief being to 'add handles to vegetables'.

I was assigned a carrot, and thus began my research into its history. Initially, I found things such as its nutritious and medical uses, however, given my project, I wanted to find something more unexpected. I then looked at Greek and Roman beliefs and, as someone who has always been interested in this topic, I should have been more prepared for the bawdy results I found and quickly moved on from.

Finally, I came across an Elizabethan practice of using the feathery stalks of carrots to decorate their coats and hats. As a result I started thinking about what a carrot could look like as a fashion item. This immediately put an image in my head of an old woman attending an opera with a carrot as a handbag, similar to those tiny handbags you get today or pockets on women's jeans, it would not store anything but that was fine as this old woman didn't need to carry anything.