Vernacular, broadly speaking, refers to things pertaining to the everyday—that which is made by, spoken, used or performed by the average person rather than experts. Vernacular helps us as humans to define the character of specific moments in time, allowing for discussion and debate.
Traditionally vernacular is identified and defined in the present to illustrate moments in the past, labelled as such through a projection of current values and meaning from an external perspective rather than in the moment of emergence of the object or action.
But this reflective process of identifying vernacular can also create misunderstanding or misconceptions caused through speculation of the past. So we asked ourselves “what if we had the power to determine the vernacular of the present?”.
Keeping a broad definition, we wanted explore vernacular further to create a system that could give clues and hints as to what objects and actions currently define our contemporary life, so that we might identify the newly emergent vernacular of ‘right now’ and create (or record) richer stories of vernacular as it arises.
Look for the results of this project in the upcoming issue of SITE Magazine in the new year!