The Genesis of Study of Material Object

From the initiation of Study of Material Object, we wanted to focus on everyday life—those objects we encounter without questioning, the instruments we wear without thinking. We were drawn to Duchamp's concept of the readymade: the revolutionary idea that the artist's gesture of selection and presentation could transform the mundane into the meaningful.

The Oura Ring was the perfect subject. Here was a device designed to measure, quantify, and make visible the invisible rhythms of your body. It's utterly contemporary, utterly utilitarian. Yet it asked us a fundamental question: What if we treated this technology as worthy of artistic attention?

The silver wheel emerged naturally from this inquiry. A wheel—Duchamp's own readymade starting point with the bicycle wheel. But also a symbol of cyclical time, of movement, of the body's own rhythms: sleep cycles, circadian patterns, heart rate variability. Silver, as conductor and mirror, as precious material that elevates the everyday into the contemplative.

By housing the Oura Ring in a silver wheel-inspired sleeve, we weren't adding functionality—we were adding intentionality. We asked the wearer to see their biometric data not as private measurement, but as an object worthy of being seen, touched, worn as sculpture.

Study of Material Object exists at this threshold: where the everyday becomes art, where utility becomes beauty, where Duchamp's question still resonates—What if I just declare this sacred?