Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 2: Kinetics and Interactivity
ARTIST RESEARCH

Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn’s performance and body extension works, better known as body sculpture, are interactive because they only work when someone attaches one of the sculptures to their own body. Horn’s work is a representation of the contact between a person and their environment or surroundings, and even a representation of feminism (1, 4). I’m going to refer to Horn’s first body of work, body sculptures, not her second and most recent bodies of work, which work with kinetic sculptures and mirrors, because I find her first body of work most relevant to performance sculpture as well as the most interesting to me. Horn’s body sculptures involve herself or someone else wearing a type of contraption and subsequently, performing while wearing it. In one of her pieces, Unicorn, a woman attached a tall horn to the top of her head by a series of straps that resembled bondage (4). It was characterized as both “ridiculous and sublime” (2). Many of her body sculptures are characterized as such; Pencil Mask, a piece that was attached to the face by straps similar to Unicorn, have pencils attached to center of the mask, and when standing close enough to a wall, the person wearing the mask can move their head back and forth in order to draw on the wall. Her body sculptures appear relatively simple in comparison with Mowry Baden’s playground-like interactive sculptures, and at first, they may even appear frivolous.

Rebecca Horn’s work engages the issue in question that is the way people interact with their environment. Horn was born in Nazi Germany, and knowing this while seeing one of her works is “troubling” (4). There is still a certain aspect of her work, however, that appears frivolous. So, Horn shows the way in which people interact with their environment in both positive and negative ways. For example, in Unicorn, some of the way her work emblems a positive message through a mythological sense, wherein the woman wearing the horn walked through the countryside naked except for the costume for 12 straight hours (3). When talking about this performance/ body sculpture piece, Horn thinks back and laughs, remembering that the woman nearly knocked hunters off of their bikes because she was so shocking. Her work was both funny and discomforting. The sight of seeing such a large and seemingly heavy contraption resting on a woman’s head and strapped to her body is a bit unsettling. Going off of the more negative aspects, Horn recalls that the woman who wore the sculpture did so grudgingly (2). The straps look to me like a torture contraption and the entire thing appears unnatural and painful. One of the ways Horn engages her theme of interacting with the environment is through her design process. She begins her works by sketching. Her drawings in side by side comparison with her final pieces not only contrast each other in that the drawing can’t encompass the same feeling that full-on body sculptures do, but the drawings show the beginning stages of the way in which the wearer will interact with their environment within the sculpture. Not only do the drawings reflect what will eventually happen in the final piece, but Horn herself is interacting with her piece from its very origins as a piece of paper, and a life size piece of paper at that. Her drawings and her final pieces are connected in that the drawings are the idea or the seed of the creation of her blossoming final piece. Her drawings are detached in that the drawings yield no strikingly positive or negative reactions with the audience as opposed to the final body-sculpture which viewers are technically able to experience. Her overarching idea of body extension works cannot be achieved simply through drawings. Her drawings not only contrast with the final piece in that it shows the work in its beginning stages, but in that the drawings don’t produce the same reaction as the final piece.

Unicorn

Pencil Mask

Bibliography

1.) "Rebecca Horn." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Horn>.

2.) Winterson, Jeanette. "The Bionic Woman." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 23 May 2005. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2005/may/23/art>.

3.) "Rebecca Horn - Official Website." Rebecca Horn. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://www.rebecca-horn.de/pages/biography.html>.

4.) "Metropolis - Arts & Entertainment | Rebecca Horn." Metropolis Magazine. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://metropolis.co.jp/arts/art-reviews/rebecca-horn/>.

Vito Acconci

In Vito Acconci’s early years, he was performance artist who had many pieces that involved interaction with other people in varying ways. A good deal of his work was shockingly outrageous, and much of it came close to the border of definitely being art, and possibly on the verge of being something entirely different. His pieces were conceptual and even had many political meanings (2). Many of Acconci’s performance pieces are either done in person, or are captured on video and then shown to viewers. I still consider these performance pieces because Acconci is performing in the videos. In Acconci’s videos, “the body is a site for a physical and psychological search for self, with language as the catalyst” (2). In Acconci’s video piece, Undertone, language is the primary stimulus, and the ultimate necessity in the video’s purpose. In the piece, Acconci sits at the end of a table and puts his hands underneath of the table, out of sight of the viewers. From the camera’s view, viewers cannot see what is underneath the table. Acconci starts to speak, saying he believes that a woman is underneath of the table caressing his thighs, etc. He switches off saying that he believes the woman is caressing his thighs and he is caressing his own thighs. Then, the piece becomes interactive when Acconci starts to address the viewer using the word “you.” He tells the viewers, “I need you to keep your place there at the head of the table. I need to know I can count on you...” He then goes on to tell them, "I need you to screen out my lies, filter out the lies from the real point of view" (2). This statement addresses the viewers, bringing them into the realm of his thought and performance, and also provoking a reaction from them. At first the video is about Acconci’s own perverse thoughts, but by the end, Acconci includes the viewer, whether they like it or not. In Acconci’s Seedbed, his performance took place in a museum for eight hours per day. The floor of the gallery was tilted upward, and Acconci lay underneath masturbating. There was a speaker above the floor projecting any of Acconci’s noises. Viewers were able to walk on the tilted floor over Acconci, and he was able to hear their footsteps. In this work, Acconci is said to be both “the producer and the receiver of the work’s pleasure” (3). Acconci may be the producer and receiver of the pleasure specifically, but viewers are definitely a part of the producing and receiving. Viewers walk over Acconci, he hears their footsteps, and the footsteps are also magnified by the speakers. The viewers are also able to hear any of Acconci’s noises, and so they are also receiving the work in one way or another. These works of Acconci’s are extremely sexual and perverted. He puts viewers into a sense of discomfort. His works are borderline obsessive (masturbating for eight hours per day, talking about who he believes is caressing his thighs for 35 minutes straight). His actions are simple and repetitive, and the way in which viewers experience the work is what identifies it as art. Acconci’s art is dependent on his own actions and the way in which he engages the viewers.

Seedbed

Undertone

Bibliography

1.) "Media Art Net | Acconci, Vito: Biography." Media Art Net. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/acconci/biography/>.

2.) "Vito Acconci." Electronic Arts Intermix: : Biography. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=289>.

3.) "Body Heat." - Page 1. 20 Apr. 2004. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-04-20/art/body-heat/>.

4.)"Artnet.com Magazine Features - Vito De Milo." Fine Art, Decorative Art, and Design. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/jsaltz/saltz4-28-04.asp>.