zeitgeist and play

I think that there might be a sort of ‘structure, sign, and play’ at work with any artistic aspect, or perhaps cultural item—even something such as a wristwatch has a certain structure, an expectation which it must  conform to less it become unrecognizable as a wristwatch and might instead become a bracelet, so the challenge for the experimental artist or designer is to challenge and ‘play’ with the expectation, to test the structural limits of the ‘wristwatch’ from whatever influences seem to be most provocative or revealing about a given moment in the zeitgeist