Freudian Slip
By Tomek Marczewski
Freudian Slip is, for all intents and purposes, just a lamp, with a shape inspired by classic antique turned lamps. What differentiates it from its inspiration is the way in which it achieves this form: as a mishmash of off-cuts.
The idea for this project was born from a desire to increase my proficiency on the wood lathe, coupled with a lack of readily available wood with which to do so. Glancing through the shop's scrap pile one day, I noticed that there was a good supply of long and thin wood fragments - off cuts from larger planks. They were all of very high quality and had lovely grain, but were likely to get thrown out for the simple reason that their size was useless for most applications.
The idea came to me then: why not combine them? Together, they would make up for their individual lack of size, they would complement each other, and the multilayered effect of the new composite piece would look great! So, I grabbed what I could find, and I got to gluing!
The size and angularity was, in all honesty, a bit hard to deal with during the gluing process, but after I trimmed the edges I was essentially left with a rectangular block. Its shape was, initially, a bit unsuited for the lathe, but after carefully chipping away at the corners, I managed to round it all, and it began to yield to me in an easer and more predictable manner.
The main problem with such a composite wood was that, as I turned it, my tool would sometimes catch on the boundaries between the layers. That meant I had to be very careful to avoid splintering. Taking it slower like that was good, though, as it helped me appreciate the beauty of the piece I was forming. As I removed material, I was revealing previously hidden layers and bringing them to the outside, resulting in a surface that was completely heterogeneous from top to bottom, with a lot of interestingly organic shapes.
At long last I had my lamp, and I loved it! But there was a slight problem: it was just a lamp. Yes, it was made of a funky looking wood composite, but the form and function of it were no different to the most basic IKEA lamp out there. I had to do something to make it stand out; make it more exciting to the eye of a viewer.
So I took the nuclear option! I sliced it. I wish I could claim I heavily considered what angles to use and at which point I should make the cuts, but...I didn't. I knew that dwelling on it would just make me overanalyse it. The whole point of this modification, after all, was to make a form that appealed to a human's emotions, and the best way to do that was to use a human's emotions in the judgement calls.
As such, this was all done by eye, and then rearranged and glued in the same manner. Now, the lamp was ready: it served its function, looked aesthetically appealing, and had a form that called the viewer's brain to ascribe certain features to it. The instinctive conclusion to viewing it is that the middle part is sliding out of the lamp; that the whole is falling apart. This gives the lamp visual weight in the middle, a treacherous-seeming overhang, and the impression of motion along the axis of the slip planes, thus lending a certain small amount of dynamic excitement to wherever it's placed, even if it's just casting light over a corner of my bedroom.
