Advanced Sculpture, 2014

Project 3: Interactivity
ARTIST RESEARCH

Carsten Höller

Carsten Höller, a Belgium artists, aims to reimagine the experience of the visitors and allows them to experiment themselves. He likes ‘representing something that is not representable (BoogieMen, Vimeo)’ and this creates situations where the familiar forms of your perception are questioned. Some of Höller’s works have included buildings, vehicles, slides, toys, games, animals, performances, flashing lights, mirrors, and sensory deprivation tanks that all make you question and reimagine. Rather his works are not just objects but a receptacle for a relationship between the work and visitor. Höller, a former entomologist who ‘now experiments on humans instead of bugs (Rosenberg).’ He is often described as the mad scientist and the museum visitors as the lab rats. But rather then caging in the ‘rats’ they are at free will or are provided the illusion of it (Lindblad). The visitors or ‘rats’ in this metaphor become subjects of the experiment. These works could be explained as experiential in elements of play with his slides and carousel pieces where the viewer is not just looking at a painting on the wall in ‘the white cube’ rather he is providing them with the opportunity to do and discover whatever they may happen to discover. Visitors get to and are invited physically go down slides, put on disorientation goggles and just allow the suspense and actually touch the art and be apart of the art. Höller prefers his works to be called “confusion machines” rather then art, that is exactly what you may encounter when seeing them – confusion (Rosenberg).

Carsten Höller engages his audience from the very beginning. Covered in salts, dizzy completely deprived of your senses and as you possibly begin to hallucinate you,The spectator, become apart of the work and are invited to participate in the element that some may discover as play.
Psycho Tank (1999), a piece in Höllers exhibit “Experience,” in the New Museum is described as a sensory deprivation pool, providing a strange out-of-body experience as the visitor floats weightlessly in a translucent white polypropylene container on a platform in 98°F water (Rosenberg). The instillation calls for visitors to disrobe, shower, and float preferably completely nude in a highly saline bath in order to provide a unique sensory-deprivation experience. By stepping in to this container you enter a new space provided to you and the rest by nature of the experiment is deprived. You no longer feel like you’re in the museum rather you just know that you are there. Allowing yourself to drift and become one directly with the work and your mind.

Höllers slides, Test Site(2006), in Torbine Hall in London have been describes as ‘giant serpents’ (Birnbaum) spiraling down from the gallery floors before reaching the bottom. The artist in an interview stated that the slides were a means of “letting go” and allowed you to ‘travel without motivation to some specific place” rather maybe you are allowed to enter pure happiness. Also the fact that the work is named Test Site goes along with this experiment theme as if these structures are not 100% sound and questions the visitors’ physiological and psychological reactions of how safe they are in this ‘unexpected environment.’ (Birnbaum One could say that he creates these works just to see the reactions of the people.
Höller’s works are a journey an experience and nothing like the typical art gallery with white wall settings. Allowing his viewers and the visitors to explore and interact with the “confusions machines’ as holler puts it takes the boring walk around the gallery and throws it right out the window.

Images:

Test Site(2006), Torbine Hall, London

Psycho Tank (1999), New Museum, polypropylene

Psycho Tank (1999) inside, New Museum, salt water bath

Citations:

Rosenberg, Karen. "Where Visitors Take the Plunge, or Plunges." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/arts/design/carsten-holler-experience-at-the-new-museum-review.html?pagewanted=all>.

Lindblad, Jennifer. "The Phenomenological "Experience" of Carsten Höller." BOMB Magazine. N.p., 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. <http://bombmagazine.org/article/6383/>.

Birnbaum, Daniel. "Mortal Coils." Art Forum 2007: 1-2. Web.

BoogieMen. "An Interview with Carsten Höller." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. <http://vimeo.com/9700027>.

Vito Acconci

Sculptures, instillations, performance pieces and videos are Vito Acconci’s most famous ways of expressing his provocative and ‘often radical art-making processes (Electronic Arts Intermix).’ Acconci's psychodramatic videos are ‘raw, crudely executed, and powerfully direct’, they enforce an ‘intensive dialogue between the artist and viewer, the body and the self, public and private, subject and object, absence and presence (Electronic Arts Intermix).’ Acconci explores the boundaries of the private and the public space and those of the performer and the audience. He focuses much of his work on the psychology of interpersonal relations. He aims was to overcome the dividing line between artist and beholder/audience (Project 3 Lecture). He's always trying to get inside other people's skins and psyches (Artnet Magazine).

In an ArchRecord Interview with Bryant Rousseau, Acconci stated, “I always wanted users, participants, inhabitants. I should have realized if I didn’t want viewers, I really didn’t want art.”  Perhaps the most crucial link is the fact that Acconci’s conceptual art never wanted passive viewers (Rousseau). Acconci’s works are not for the light hearted rather they requires a viewer who is intrigued by his often sexual themes that bring the normal notion of privacy out in the open.  He wanted to move away from the traditions and conventions of art and being an art viewer. Rather being a participant of an Acconci should have not have a “desire or frustration (Rousseau)” due to the ‘Do Not Touch’ signs in a museum. All the signs do is say that the art is more expensive than people walking around it are. Acconci stated ‘I wanted things to be in people’s hands, people to be inside something. You know architecture by walking through it, by being in the middle of it, not by being in front of it. And I wonder if the real way you learn things is to be in the middle of something (Rousseau).’

Acconci is often the protagonist in his early works and regularly invites viewers in participation. For example in Seedbed (1972), one of his legendary sculpture/performances where Acconci lays beneath a ramp built in the gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring things (Artnet Magazine) as people walked overhead; they listened to his sexual fantasies, which were broadcast via loudspeakers (Fletcher).  In this instance he is simultaneously making it public and private, ‘making marks yet leaving little behind, and demonstrating ultra-awareness of his viewer while being in a semi-trance state (Artnet Magazine).’ He ‘transgresses the usual boundaries between audience and performer (Fletcher)’, as well as public and private space.

Pieces such as (Untitled) Project for Pier 17 (1971) were conducted as explorations into human relationships. For one hour, over a 29-day period, Acconci would wait on Pier 17 in New York (Ryan). If someone happened to stop by he would tell him or her a personal fact about himself that he had never revealed before (Ryan). He explained this as ‘something that I’m ashamed of and that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t tell a soul, something that – if it were made public – could be used against me (Ryan).’ Asking the viewer to keep this secret, Acconci then invited them to demand something from him, even blackmail him. A bargain is struck between the person and Acconci (YouTube). Although Acconci didn’t use anything to get the people to walk up to him he built a relationship with them by only sharing a secret. He compared this experience to when he was a kid going to confession telling the priest his sins like ‘I got mad 3 times today (YouTube)’ but that wasn’t really a sin. Only a few of his secrets were actually truly secret but the person didn’t need to know that, all they needed to do was keep it safe.

Images and video clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-C0P1nql74

Seedbed (1972)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbk-tnZqNyM

(Untitled) Project for Pier 17 (1971)

Citation

"Vito Acconci." Electronic Arts Intermix : Biography. Electronic Arts Intermix, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. <http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=289>.

"Vito De Milo." Artnet Magazine. ArtNet Worldwide Corporation, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.artnet.com%2FMagazine%2Ffeatures%2Fjsaltz%2Fsaltz4-28-04.asp.>.

Rousseau, Bryant. "The ArchRecord Interview: Vito Acconci." Architecture Design for Architects. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http://archrecord.construction.com/features/interviews/0718Acconci/0718acconci-1.asp>.

Fletcher, Kanitra. "Vito Acconci." The Public Art Program of the University of Texas at Austin. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <https://www.landmarks.utexas.edu/projects/video/acconci>.

Ryan, Zoë. "PROFILE: VITO ACCONCI." Contemporary-Magazines. Contemporary-Magazines, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http://www.contemporary-magazines.com/profile60.htm>.

"Vito Acconci, Untitled Project for Pier 17, 1971." YouTube. YouTube, 03 Jan. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbk-tnZqNyM>.