PHILIP AND BILLIE

PHILIP AND BILLIE

BILLIE, 2020, table: 890 x 500 x 500 mm, glass plate: 1078 x 430 mm, painted MDF, wood glue, steel tubes, screws, wood filler, lacquer, superglue, marker, magnets, steel parts, glass

PHILIP, 2020, table: 850 x 750 x 942 mm, extra tabletop: 1010 x 720 mm, painted MDF, screws, wood filler, lacquer, superglue, marker, magnets, steel parts

Functionality is an important aspect when evaluating an object made for use. Koen Van Eeckhoutte, only recently being detached from an era of childhood, remembers the functional properties his toys used to carry. These being very simple and practically unimportant; pulling an inactivating lever or something which can be added or detached simply because it does so. The importance of these functions mainly relied on the imagination of children. They don’t actually have to be meaningful, the child figures out that part.

Koen Van Eeckhoutte, ever longing to release a matching furniture set, magnifies this aspect in the polar functional attributes of PHILIP and BILLIE. Both behold a magnetically enhanced functioning aspect.

In the case of PHILIP this aspect is marked as an interchangeable tabletop, made for the practical and smart adults who cease to pick a locked size and are now left with a meaningful choice. BILLIE has a more primal functional aspect. In its case, one part simply detaches to elaborate on the concept of only an imaginary consequence when interacting. How does it feel to interact when there are no practical consequences, and you are left with just your own fill-in?

PHILIP and BILLIE’s undersides are layered with steel plates instead of regular felt pads to demand a certain approach in use of the objects. They should not be pushed or shoved but instead be lifted with care, as to not scrape one’s floor.

BILLIE INCLUDES: TABLE, CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, REMOVABLE RIB, POSTCARD ILLUSTRATION

PHILIP INCLUDES: TABLE, CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, REMOVABLE TABLETOP, POSTCARD ILLUSTRATION”