IMMINENT DETOUR

Imminent Detour / Andreea Samoilă (1996,RO) is a visual artist interested in objects, words and tools after they depart from the "manual" version of themselves.

She works under the name Imminent Detour to give a nod to memory palaces, and because she is in no rush to get to the point.


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IMMINENT DETOUR

Andreea Samoilă (1996,RO) is a visual artist, and an independent editor & art director of printed matter. She is interested in objects, words and tools after they depart from the "manual" version of themselves.

She makes objects, books and actions focussing on witty uses of objects, unexpected associations and word-play. Andreea works under the name Imminent Detour, giving a nod to memory palaces, imaginary spaces and times in which to anchor new information.

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Handshake of the Object

Text contributors: Ben Gommersall, Hani Salih, Andrei Brumboiu, Luis Hilti, Ionuț Popa, Sotiris Frankos and Andreea Samoila.


Usually when meeting someone new you would shake hands, and their cadence of speech, tone of voice, and the way of holding themselves would inform your first impression. Could the same be said about a first impression of an object? In “Eyes of the Skin”, Julhani Pallasma beautifully exclaims that “The door handle is the handshake of the building”. Itʼs through the hands that you intentionally reach for a first encounter. It's through these first contact points, the handshakes with objects, that give confirmation to your visual understanding that, yes indeed, the surface you approach will touch you back when you reach out your hand towards it. Here is a selection of stories about objects that are designed knowing they are first touchpoints, literal and metaphorical gatekeepers to first impressions of spaces.



1. A door handle came to my mind immediately, but to my surprise I cannot locate it. Itʼs an old wooden door handle, carved, not very arty, more functional and rough. In fact, it is rather a door-knob, attached with a wooden extension that locks the door. It functions like most doors, but in the most primitive sense. You can even kick-close the door and if it has the right speed at impact, the extension is pushed over a triangular barrier and locks. Now that I have visualised kicking the door close, I think I remember the door being from a cabin around two hours walk from where I grew up, halfway up the mountain. Itʼs a hut where anyone can go and stay overnight and we did so often as teenagers. That door handle was perfectly functional, had a nice sound and feel to it, I should go close that door soon again.

2.Funnily enough, it's the door handle for my room. I've been doing some renovation around my room for the last year (...) and I bought these door handles before anything else. Anyway, it's a black brass handle that has these small ridges that run along the length of it. I use it literally everyday but I did a bad job fitting it so it's a bit wobbly.

3. The door handle that pops into my mind is a doorknob from my great grandparents old house. It was glass and cut into a faceted crystal type shape. It was surprisingly jagged but I remember it specifically because it was transparent and you could see the pin going through the door to the other side so as a kid it was the first time I could see how door handles actually worked. I used to stand looking edge on at the open door just turning the handles.

4. The classical looking, mildly-aged brass one from the only other house in Romania I lived in beside my parentsʼ house. I remember it later on how it kept on breaking down and leaving me with a door handle in my hand and a door-handle-face on the floor every time I walked in between the two rooms it separated. My boyfriend kept meticulously packing string or wires in the body of the lock, in order for it to hold, but with no great avail. The screws holding the face of it were also falling out because they ate away the wood they once had a firm bite into. I will most certainly never grasp that unravelling door handle again, as it was the house of a painter who rented out his house for only a year. Not sure if it's my favourite, but it is encrusted into my list of “ joyous door handles of life”.

5. So there's this old door handle on an old wooden door somewhere downtown. It's made of metal and it looks almost like a paw made out of twisted branches and the end of it fits neatly in your palm as you twist it. I think it's at the entrance to an old building. Can't recall which exactly.

6. I remember the door handle from a pub with traditional Romanian motifs and hipster plants and furniture. It was a big and fat door handle out of sculpted wood, and it was just floppy and past its peak of possible use. I am guessing it was “tired” from the excited and over-jolty use of a few people while cruising to the bathroom on a few pints? Or the many vigilant and sober uses of the accompanying designated-driver friends? Hmmm. I think I first encountered it when it was already floppy.

7. You got me here. Actually I do have a favourite door handle, but when I try to remember the name of the author, somehow it doesn’t come up. I can describe it though: itʼs a handle did by a Dutch architect somewhere between the 60s – 80s, and it's a long bar that has a 90 degrees angle somewhere at the 1/3 of its length and itʼs placed 45 degrees regarding the edges of the door. This way, users of all heights can use it. Beautiful, beautiful door handle.

8. The first thing that came into my mind was a one-way door. The handle and its placement are extremely functional - so much so that you donʼt even think about them, it seems as though they couldn’t really have been any other way. A solution of mathematical certainty to a design problem - a convenient impossibility. This means that opening the door is utterly intuitive, almost instinctual. And so, you go through, and thereʼs no way back. You thought there would be. Tough luck.