Advanced Sculpture, 2014

Project 3: Interactivity
ARTIST RESEARCH/PROPOSAL

Proposal
Project #3

After researching Carsten Holler, I want to create a project that deals with physical perception. I would like to create a bridge. The platform of the bridge will look like skis;  they will be suspended from the vertical support beams around the platform.  The platform will move as people walk across it. Participants will have to hold on to the railings in order to get from one side to the other. This project is intended to create bodily awareness. As the participant moves across the bridge they will become very aware of the way in which they are travelling. Creating a walkway that is abnormal in our everyday environment will encourage the participants to think about the possibilities of alternative architecture.

Project #3

Artist Research
Carsten Holler

 “The real material I work with is people’s experience [. . .] I think of life as an experiment on oneself. Subjective personal experience in science is a no-no. In starting to make art, I wanted to bring in what had been forbidden.” – Carsten Holler

Carsten Holler began his professional career with a Doctorate in Biology, which has been a prominent influence in his approach to art . His work indulges viewers in an experience that reconfigures normative perception of the self and environments by creating art objects that are generally recognizable but atypical within their setting or scale. Holler’s sculptures, like his slides or carousel, create a place for experimentation, they are not merely to be looked at but to be played with and investigated. Holler assumes the role of a scientist and the people become inquisitive lab
rats as they engage with the space .  

Test Site was an installation made for the Tate in London. Inside of Turbine Hall, 5 steep, silver slides were used to transport visitors around the museum. The longest tube measures 180 feet in length and rises 90 feet in the air.   Entrance to the slides look like a hole or a large industrial pipe coming up from the floor of the museum. Although viewers are unable to see the entirety of the slide when they enter, they can see as they wiz down and others can see them; half of the slides are covered in hard, clear, plastic.  Merleau Ponty argues that ‘active perception’ requires the involvement of the body, along with the mind. The conjunction can provide a more profound, heightened sense of perception, a temporal experience that illuminates the grandiose scale of perception.  Holler’s work provides numerous possibilities for Ponty’s ideal of  ‘active perception.’ When a person is simply viewing they are experiencing something with a limited palette.   Viewers who go down the slide will have more of a transformative effect than those who simply watch.

The first place Holler installed his slides was at the Kunst-Werke Building in 1998 for the Berlin Biennial. He showed them alongside drawings that demonstrated the slides on a massive scale, like those he installed eight years later in Test Site. Inside of the museum the slides critique the “boring, utilitarianism that increasingly governs our lives.”   They represent a freedom or temporal withdrawal from sedimentary lifestyles. When participants see the colossal sculptures they are delighted, excited and wanting to play. Holler’s work is able to stimulate an environment that, not only, changes the viewer’s physical reaction within a space but their emotional states as well, often synthesizing hallucinatory effects.  The ride on the longest slide is about thirty seconds, offering up enough time to become aware of the fall.  This awareness has been described as hallucinogenic, an unusual mindfulness of the body in motion. In a 

                          
Carsten Höller, Test Site Installation view, Experience, New Museum.

           
Holler’s most recent work, Double Club, challenges western views on perception of culture. Double Club, was the name of an actual place in London that opened for eight months.  The site was constructed to embellish two cultures, Congolese and Western (English society). Inside, the space offers a bar, restaurant and discotheque. A diverse group of people inhabits the space, creating opportunities for interaction that, perhaps, wouldn’t otherwise be had.   The clashing of two cultures is obvious in the music; the drinks, the food, the décor and the walls even feature paintings from both sides of the world. The model club is another piece that demonstrates Holler’s interest in human interaction and self -perception. Like Test Site, Double Club is a juxtaposition of prop and environment and is meant to be a societal critique. Double Club represents the Western views of their own perceptions upon the Congolese, it acts as a mirror.  Holler has chosen to show the Congolese as happy people with great music and cheap food. Holler presents a work that “DOES NOT ADDRESS” the more troublesome side of the Congolese culture, like most attempts to enlighten Westerners of the atrocities that are occurring.  By presenting the ideal, one wonders what is really going on.  Double Club is truly a silent protest to the largely ignored holocaust and “ongoing colonization” in the Congo. The proceeds made during its span were donated to City of Joy, a non-profit for rape victims in the Congo.

Together, Holler’s works create a playful atmosphere that is both safe and dangerous. He is fascinated by the interactions created during these environments and their influence upon our perceptual investigations and understandings.

Lindblad, 2012
Birnbaum, 2007
Birnbaum, 2007
Lindblad, 2012
Lindblad, 2012
Birnbaum, 2007
Birnbaum, 2007
Birnbaum, 2007
Vazari, 2009
Vazari, 2009
Vazari, 2009
Vazari, 2009
Vazari, 2009
Vazari, 2009

Bibliography

"Carsten Höller: Interview." Tate. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series-carsten-holler-test-site/carsten-holler-interview (accessed April 25, 2014).

Contemporary Art Magazine. "Carsten Höller: The Double Club." thisistomorrow. http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/carsten-hoeller-the-double-club (accessed April 25, 2014).

Birnbaum, Daniel. "Mortal Coils." . http://doc.airdeparis.com/docs/press/HOELLER%20Carsten/ch_07artforum.pdf (accessed April 25, 2014).

Kennedy, Randy. "Is It Art, Science or a Test of People?." The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/arts/design/carsten-holler-exhibition-at-the-new-museum.html?ref=design&_r=1& (accessed April 25, 2014).

"Bomb." BOMB Magazine — The Phenomenological "Experience" of Carsten Höller by Jennifer Lindblad. http://bombmagazine.org/article/6383/ (accessed April 25, 2014).

Vito Acconci  
Artist Research #2

Vito Acconci is an artist who interactively investigates public and private space. He explores a variety of media, including performance and sculpture and since 1988 his focus has been focused upon architecture and how it impedes our actions within a space.  Acconci’s work has always been focused on action, natural and contrived. 

From the beginning, Acconci has sought to make work in which people must be inside of instead of traditionally viewing. “I always wanted users, participants, inhabitants. I should have realized if I didn’t want viewers, I really didn’t want art.” (Rousseau, ND).   Acconci has used the body as a vehicle for architectural investigations.  At one point he was interested in creating spaces that were depicted by actions, if you sat on a swing the walls would come up around you. (Rousseau, ND).

Acconci became famous for his video performance works created during the late 60's and 70's.  In these videos Acconci uses his own body and sometimes the body of others to examine conceptual theories (Electronics Arts Intermix, ND), usually regarding the body and its interactions with itself, others and the environment. His videos are intimate often he is looking directly at the camera and engaging with an audience.  His videos are shot in real time with a fixed camera, which creates more of a palpable presence (Electronic Arts Intermix, ND).   His choices in directing video make them feel like exhibitionism, that we are watching someone live, or through a camera rather then a recording.

Acconci’s work investigates public and private spaces but also the ways in which our bodies are both public and private entities.  In Following Piece Acconci follows a chosen subject through New York until they enter a private space.  He captures their journey throughout the public even stopping to hail a cab in order to follow them.  He writes a letter documenting each of the followings and then sends the letter to a friend in the art world. The act of following someone without them knowing through their journey is very voyeuristic.  The work becomes invasive on another level when he documents the work and sends it to a friend because now he is engaging another person unknowingly. The person receiving the letter has the choice to open it or not but seeing that it is from a friend or an acquaintance they open and begin to read only to find out it is an account of someone being followed or engaged in Acconci’s world unknowingly. Often this is a way that Acconci’s work becomes interactive; without warning.  Similar to Seedbed, the piece he is most notorious for, in that the viewer is unsuspecting that he would be underneath the floor masturbating. Again, this is a piece that investigates the body and the body in space, a public space. It is interesting though because in this piece we don’t see Acconci, we can only hear him and assume what is going on. The act of masturbating is typically private and he furthers the intimacy of the act by speaking through it. Some people don’t even express those things to their partners let alone a gallery of strangers.  The invasive nature of this piece creates an odd juxtaposition because it is an act that someone would usually stop if you were to walk in but he is inviting the viewer to enter. Acconci’s body is not put on display but his psyche inverting the relationship of what is usually private versus public. Usually people can see our bodies but they can’t read our minds. Now we can’t see what he is physically doing but we are told what he is thinking.

His visual pleasure masks are a sculpture example of the investigation of the body. Unlike his videos the masks solicit a direct engagement with an art object.  They create a scenario for the participant that simultaneously seduces the participant and the viewer in numerous ways.  Inside of one of the masks, the person is able to watch TV while pleasuring someone from the outside.

Acconci’s work in the conceptual realm of the body is incredibly influential to myself,  as an artist and I think that if I can stomach it I will continue to watch his videos.

Bibliography

"Media Art Net | Acconci, Vito: Biography." Media Art Net | Acconci, Vito: Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 May 2014. <http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/acconci/biography/>.

"Vito Acconci Bibliography (Full)." . Electronic Arts Intermix, n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. <http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=289>.