Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 2: Kinetics and Interactivity
ANALYSIS

Pieces that we think of as being interactive often explicitly acknowledge, in some way, the presence of an audience. In what way they do it, often does not matter. Rirkrit Tiravanija acknowledges the audience by sharing the power of the gallery and of the artist with the audience and inviting them into the fold. Vito Acconci acknowledges the audience by challenging them and confronting them and attempting to make explicit the way in which the artist controls the audience/performer dynamic. This is why both these artist are seen as artist’s operating in an interactive tradition. Because without the audience, interactive pieces serve no purpose. If you took away the audience from Michelangelo’s David it would not change its meaning in the least. However, if no one showed up to Rirkrit serving Pad Thai at the 303 gallery, the piece would be a façade. If no showed up to the Tate Modern during the period Carsten Holler’s slides were up, would it still be art? Or would they just be slides again?

In my opinion, they would just become slides again. They would become slides because the slides are not what constitutes the art in the piece. Slides are everywhere and there is literally nothing that differentiates these slides from other slides in the world. They are all the same slide. However, because these slides are in a gallery setting, what becomes the art is the act of sliding. Because Carsten Holler already has an audience that is ready to participate in an artistic experience, he is able to use that to make the act of sliding an enlightening experience.

Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain is the first example of explicitly interactive art, of art for art’s sake and not for the sake of objecthood. Previously to The Fountain, art that might be considered interactive was art for the sake of objecthood. A good example of this might be a nicely decorated teacup. Duchamp’s Fountain was not especially decorated by him, if it was, it would clearly highlight the objecthood. Decoration would be Duchamp making a concession to the audience. It would no longer be interactive. Because it isn’t decorated Duchamp is explicitly challenging our pre-conceived notions about what art is.

A lot has changed in interactive art since Duchamp though. Art that is interactive is now a lot less passive. The viewer often has to physically take part in the art. Or the art has come to mean the whole experience, as opposed to the thought process typified by earlier interactive art.