Project 2: Kinetics and Interactivity
ARTIST RESEARCH

Vito Acconci
Vito Acconci was born in New York in 1940. After earning his B.A in lit at Holly Cross College, he went on to earn his M.A in poetry and literature from Worcester, Massachusetts. He taught art theory for a while before devoting his time to art. He was very involved in performance art and often created works of art in public spaces involving interaction. He did many performances and interactions in New York City.

Acconci’s artwork focuses on the id or the self as it merges with others, including other space. His art deals a lot with emotion and different ways of expressing it. one of his preformances was a video of himself conversing with his own genetalia. His performances often involve him interacting with himself while others observe. For example, one of his performances included him lying prostrate on a ramp while masturbating for eight hours while murmuring, “You're pushing your cunt down on my mouth" and "You're ramming your cock down into my ass." The interaction displayed here comes from his interaction with his own body and others’ reactions to his actions. He exhibits his awareness [if only brief] of the viewer while he himself is immersed in somewhat of a trance.

Acconci focuses on performance mainly in the form of videos. He created a dialogue between himself and the viewer through these recordings. He also breaches the barriers between the body and the self as well as the private and the public. He uses technology to aid him in his art, such as playing with camera angles and the overall documentation.

His artwork using the tool of shock to prove his point. He is very open with his body and often uses it in his preformances to initmately express hisself. In daily life, the naked body is not often displayed, and certainly not to the extent that he has used it. He fully expresses hisself in the rawest form, and using interaction with the audience like he does makes his expression even more concrete.

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Christo and Jeanne Claude

Christo and Jeanna-Claude are a husband and wife team, also known as more simply, Christo. They specialze in creating huge installation outside in the nartural world. The interactive element of these works is the idea that they create their installations in public places, often wrapping large popular buildings.

They have collaborated on their art for four years, both in urban and rural areas. For the funding ofn their works, Christo and Jeanna-Claude pay for everything themselves, raising the money from their preparatory studies and from art sales.

The goal of their large, environmental type art is to let the public see environments with new eyes from a new perspective. With the concept of wrapping buildings, you see buildings in a brand new light and possibly observe things you have never observed before. In addition, when you return to the site that was once wrapped or modified, the memory still sticks with you as you look at it once more as it originally was.

Christo originally proposed the installation of gates in New York City's Central Park in 1979, and the permission wasn't granted until 2005. 7, 503 gates, five meters high, were places around New York through which people were able to walk.

Creating a piece like this is a direct interaction with the artwork. The audience is able to encounter the artwork while walking through central park and is able to have a new experience while walking through New York.