Can installation provide representations of reality and what does it mean to do so?
In my thesis I'm posing the question, can immersive installations provide real experiences? If these environments are fabricated and constructed, though we physically and psychologically experience them does it constitute the experience as being authentic?
I havn't even begun to write my thesis as of yet, but I'm hoping to look into arguing/answering that question by looking into various methods of vision and perception; theoretically through Jonathon Crary's writings and the Installation work of Olafur Eliasson.
Perception/vision can be controlled, standardised, automated and impoverished by a mediating world....What can installation bring to a viewer and why is this necessary to understand the world in which we live?
In regards to Eliasson's work there is a resistance to all-out illusionism...although his environments may seem to bring the 'outside' world into the interiors of museum buildings, the fabrication of his construction is clearly transparant...
His work consists of a "dual move, generating an emotional response while unveiling its material basis,[which is] central to the art's content, for it disables our impression not just of the work but also of the world as a naturalised, uninterrupted continuum."
He is not trying to completely disillusion the viewer into thinking these environments are real, they are man made, constructed, not so far away from the man made islands/places of the world, such as Dubai for example....
Why does he chose resist this "all-out illusionism"? What does this mean? What is he trying to convey?
...."The trigger to a sharpened speculative impulse centres on the notion of legitability, apparent in his works conspicious exposure of its own fabrication and in the literalism of its materials."...
Because the construction/fabrication is clear and unhidden, that makes our "speculative impulse".. our engagement with the work heightened.
The Weather Project
The subject of the weather has long shaped the content of everyday conversation. The eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson famously remarked ‘It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.’ In The Weather Project, the fourth in the annual Unilever Series of commissions for the Turbine Hall, Olafur Eliasson takes this ubiquitous subject as the basis for exploring ideas about experience, mediation and representation.
In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.
SOURCE
Double Sunset
In Double sunset from 1999, installed in the Dutch city of Utrecht, Eliasson created a sunset of scaffolding, steel and lamps that mirrored the actual sunset. A sunset is an event with which we are all familiar but which elicits very different associations in each of us: romantic, natural or symbolic as the case may be. Any sense of the natural is punctured, however, by the fact that here viewers can walk behind the sun and see its construction. And yet, the image remains aesthetically beautiful and seductive. Eliasson challenges the notions of space and concepts that we normally take for granted, so that as viewers - and participants - we are invited to perceive what we have seen a thousand times before in a new way. And this is where Eliasson's art steps beyond institutional frameworks and opens up a fresh perception of our agency in the world.
SOURCE
Notion Motion
he installation consists of three consecutive situations using water and light (HMI projectors) to visualise the movement of the gallery visitors. Linked by a long, elevated wooden walkway, the situations experiment with vibrations as a phenomenon that defines and reconfigures space.
In room one an entire elevated wooden floor transforms the movement of people walking about the space into ripples in a water basin located on the opposite side of a black projection screen. The water is reflected onto the screen, its ripples varying according to the movement of the people. In the second room movement along the ramp activates water in a smaller basin; its waves are projected through a narrow, horizontal slit in a temporary wall onto a larger wall in a vibrating line. In the third room a sponge continuously falls into a large water basin and is slowly elevated again, the splash and water dripping from the sponge causing waves on the surface that are projected onto a white wall.
In his large-scale installation Eliasson explores the consequences of visitor movement within a museum space, thus drawing attention to the fact that no space is neutral or stable. Their mere presence in the rooms turns visitors into participants: they are immersed in the installation structure while influencing this very structure through their physical exploration of the space.
SOURCE
No comments:
Post a Comment