GAMES > DISCARD

A handful of cards resting on one another

Blue and white porcelain vessels are historically and presently prized for their lightness, decoration, and the skill it takes to create such intricately delicate objects among many other properties. Porcelain as a ware lends itself to these thin and strong works, being a high fire clay which vitrifies once fully matured. What would it mean, then, to not fully mature this clay body? To speak in the language of its decorative tradition and yet suggest in form that it is made to be touched, shuffled, worn down, played with, instead of prized from afar. Value is a fickle thing, and even just the idea of touch tends to muddle the fragile balance between worth and worthlessness. DISCARD lies toes the line of value and worthlessness, speaks to question of how objects can be devalued by human touch and production and yet are appraised initially by such handiwork.

Several cards ‘begin’ sliding, having toppled from their castle


DISCARD is a play on materiality and dysfunction, containing a little less than two decks worth of blank porcelain cards held together by gravity and museum wax.

Actively worthless as playing cards, these objects when placed together inherently create a discard pile-
a collection of cards that are no longer in play, though they seem to be frozen in an active state

Blank cards spill over one another in a perpetual state of falling

Two cards balance delicately over the edge

By EROS C BACKUS | eroscbackus@gmail.com | a little less than two decks worth of screen printed blank porcelain playing cards, museum wax, trust in gravity

Originally Made: December 3rd, 2022

DISCARD