anti-function

All fine art is anti-functional. Art is not created to help with the groceries, to fight cancer, or even to tell people when and when not to cross the street, it is instead created just to exist. Sure some pieces are intended to evoke some feeling or idea or look like something, but still the art piece for the most part is intended to sit there and look nice because it has been declared as "art." One might say that art entertains, but it is surely not made to entertain. It's a manifestation of intention not of coherence and especially not of utility. Following in this philosophy, Marcel's documentational works are records of art made specifically to not function.

The anti-functional pieces often use expectations of ordinary objects or situations that are overtly functional by nature. Many objects are wittily manipulated or edited to cause failure or inhibit utilization like Match in Water. Some objects and situations are created for fictitious purposes like My Grandma Opening an Umbrella Inside. Because luck doesn't exist, the attempt to do something "unlucky" was a non-functional situation. Other works are humorously created out of the wrong material, rendering them useless like Stone Balloon.

The anti-functional objects and situations are documented in limited editions of two with format borrowed from the internet, simple photograph and text juxtaposition on a background, and the aesthetics of the real world, found objects and the human hand. The documentational pieces are quite physical but yet force the viewer to look at the anti-functional art second hand as if on a computer. The photograph files of the work are deleted from the camera after printing only two of each, eliminating the ability to make further copies. The objects are usually then destroyed or situations dismembered because, well, they don't do anything. Like much in today's social media culture which exists only in data, the documentational works are the only existing evidence of the once-physical anti-functional art.