Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 2: Kinetics and Interactivity
ANALYSIS

There are multiple underlying conceptual issues regarding interactive sculptures. The main issues I’ve found so far are how my intent as the artist might translate when viewers experience my sculpture, and also what my reasons are beyond my intent. I can intend for viewers to experience something specific, but why do I want them to experience it? Why is it significant?

Interactive sculptures require the audience to be involved in the piece in one way or another. The involvement can range from being extremely active with the piece, or simply watching the piece. Pieces that involve simply watching are interactive because the artist makes it so. For example, in Vito Acconci’s Undertone, viewers are to simply watch a video that he has created. Viewers become involved once Acconci speaks specifically to the viewers through the usage of the word “you.” On the other hand, interactive sculptors like Mowry Baden create works that he intends for the audience to physically touch and interact with. His piece Prone Gyres looks like a board that is attached to a mechanism that allows the board to gyrate and move around. Viewers (or as I like to call them, participants) will lay face down on the board and move themselves. So, viewer participation in interactive sculptures can vary immensely.
The amount of viewer participation can be a result of the artist’s intent. If the artist wants the viewer to feel something physical, perhaps they will put viewers in a situation where they must physically move. If the artist wants the viewer to think about a certain concept, maybe they can just speak to them on a “personal” level, much like Acconci.

Prone Gyres, Mowry Baden

Undertone, Vito Acconci

I’ve found that it’s easier to come up with an idea and say, “This is how I want the viewers to feel and this is what I want them to think,” than it is for my idea to make them feel the way I want. In a way that is the beauty of art—someone might come up with an entirely new idea that the artist hadn’t even conceived. At the same time, I’d like to have an intention rather than leave my sculpture entirely up to interpretation. So how, then, will I make viewers experience what I want them to? Will I guide them with some form of text? A title perhaps, or even some guiding sentences? Should the colors and materials I use have obvious meanings? And, once I figure out how to make the sculpture deliver what I want it to, or perhaps even before, what will my underlying reason be for making viewers experience what I want them to?

My idea, put simply, is to have a large wooden cube with holes through out, meant for viewers to reach their arm in and feel a different, unseen material in each hole. My intent is for viewers to interact with this sculpture with no indication of what they will feel. So, how do I carry out my intent? Do I paint my box black because the color black is mysterious? Do I paint it white because white would make the cube looks like it is in a neutral gallery setting? Perhaps a white box might make participants feel safe; that anything they feel inside of a box that belongs in a gallery will be harmless. And, once this is carried out, what is the purpose beyond my intent? My intent in itself is a purpose and an objective from the viewers’ standpoints. For me, however, my intent needs to come from something other than thin air. Why do I want participants to plunge their hands into mysterious holes in a mysterious box? What do I want them to feel, and why do I want them to feel it? These questions are being answered through out my process. As the box starts to come together and I’m visualizing a physical item instead of an idea, my thoughts start to change, and I start to see the object more from a viewer’s standpoint than the artist’s. I like to consider my ideas from both standpoints in order for viewers to achieve the highest quality experience.