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Explore how relational art practitioners have facilitated works of art in specific environments to enhance interaction and connections within contemporary societies. Analyze Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's "Pulse Room," Suzanne Lacy's Brechtian Theatre, and Carsten Holler's Macario film.
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Title How have relational art practitioners facilitated works of art in selected environments and spaces to enhance contemporary societies interaction and connections with art. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Suzanne Lacy Carsten Holler
Intro The three artworks I have chosen to analyse have created an environment that supports and encourages, human interaction, connections, participation, and dialogue and social exchanges in accordance to the works contexts. society.
“To a form of art with intersubjectivity as its substratum. Its central themes are being-together, the encounter between viewer and painting, and the collective elaboration of meaning” (N, Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, 1998)
The viewer becomes more than just a viewer but a participator. They become part of the work, their presence changes the work and it’s meaning becomes increasingly personal and in turn generates more interconnectivity. The work is no longer static but ever changing with its viewers/participators.
Hemmer Rafael Lozano-Hemmer “Pulse Room” www.lozano-hemmer.com
“Pulse Room is an interactive installation featuring one to three hundred clear incandescent light bulbs, The bulbs are uniformly distributed over the exhibition room, filling it completely. An interface placed on a side of the room has a sensor that detects the heart rate of participants. When someone holds the interface, a computerdetects his or her pulse and sets off the closest bulb to flash at the exact rhythm of his or her heart. The moment the interface is released all the lights turn off briefly and the flashing sequence advances by one position down the queue, to the next bulb in the grid. Each time someone touches the interface a heart pattern is recorded and this is sent to the first bulb in the grid, pushing ahead all the existing recordings. At any given time the installation shows the recordings from the most recent participants.” http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/pulse_room.php
Macario directed by Roberto Gavaldón in 1960 “On entering Death's cavern for turning his "gift" into merchandise. Death shows him the candles that the cavern is filled with, thousands of candles all representing a person's life. The making of the wax and length of the candle all factor into the lifespan of a given person. Death then snuffs out the candle of the Viceroy before Macario's eyes. When Macario sees how short his candle is, he begs Death to save it but Death refuses.
In exhibition notes Hemmer shows high consideration of how the space will effect the experience his work creates for the viewer. Making sure that nothing is lost in the variety of spaces used. “Pulse Room’s visual effect is greatly influenced by the way the light interacts with the spatial and architectural setting. While the installation can cover anywhere from 100 to 1000 square meters, the resulting effects will vary greatly. In the case of a large space The result will be an intricate and sometimes disorienting environment In the case of a small space The final result is a warmer and more intimatelighting environment. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/pulse_room.php
Exhibitions/Gallery space Creating a space away from the compound of society’s structure creating a free space in which we get away from every day-organised life and are encouraged to connected with others and to open our minds. Interstice space – Karl Marx – Escaping the framework of the capitalist economy. “An exhibition is a privileged place where instant communities like this can be established: depending on the degree of audience participation demanded by the artist, the nature of the works on show and the models of sociability that are represented or suggested, an exhibition can generate a particular ‘domain of exchanges’. Pg 162 Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics 1998
Creates two different experiences: The direct experience were the participator connects to and through the work, and the viewer’s experience of watching the work.
It brings the viewer and art closer, creating a moment in which the viewer builds a relationship with the work and becomes a key ingredient to its success. The work continuously changes creating increasingly changeable encounter’s between the viewer and the art. Q: Can relational art work relate to everyone or just those lucky enough to be involved? Q: Do u have to experience the piece first hand to appreciate it as a piece of art?
“Artists are increasingly judged by their working process – the degree to which they supply good or bad models of collaboration – and criticised for any hint of potential exploitation that fails to fully represent their subjects” (The social turn: collaboration and its discontents, C Bishop) There's also taking into consideration the involvement of participators in the working process and how projects emerge.. “Accusations of mastery and egotism are levelled at artist who work with participants to realize a project instead of allowing it to emerge through consensual collaboration” Claire Bishop Unlike that of Suzanne Lacy’s ……… were see facilitate a process were the work evolves through collective collaboration and creativeness
lacy Suzanne Lacy “The Roof is on Fire” Suzanne Lacy, Annice Jacoby, Chris Johnson (Oakland 1993-4)
‘The Roof is on fire’ overview “In June, Oakland teenagers made national news twice in one week. The first was a youth “riot” after the city’s annual summer festival. Windows were broken, stones thrown, and cans of mace sprayed. Later investigation revealed the role of the police in escalating what began as a minor incident. One week later the young people were in control of the message. It featured 220 public high school students in unscripted and unedited conversations on family, sexuality, drugs, music, neighbourhoods and the future as they sat in 100 cars parked on a rooftop garage… But unlike the typical newscast, this story had a different twist: youth represented themselves.” www.suzannelacy.com/1990soakland_roof_overview.htm
Suzanne Lacy’s Aim “Provided the students with a space from which to speak to each other and to a broader audience that functioned as a rhetorical stand-in for a dominant culture that is far more comfortable telling young people of colour what to think than it is with hearing what they have to say. The process of active, creative listening is evident both in Lacy’s extensive discussions with the students in developing the project and in the attitude of openness encouraged in the viewer/over hearer by the work itself” pg116 Kester, Grant.H, 2004
Preparation “The four teachers created a media literacy curriculum to explore the relationship between mass media images and teen identity... the class introduced media literacy in the classroom as a way to engage students... From this group, 15 students were elected to be the Youth Steering Committee, which participated in all aspects of the production and media coverage.” www.suzannelacy.com/1990soakland_roof_overview.htm
Role of Dialogue “Conversation becomes an integral part of the work itself. It is refrained as an active, generative process that can help us speak and imagine beyond the limits of fixed identities, official discourse, and the perceived inevitability of partisan political conflict” pg8 Kester, Grant.H, 2004 “Contemporary art resembles a period of time that has to be experienced, or the opening of a dialogue that never ends” Pg160 Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics 1998
In contrast to ‘Pulse Room’ the piece took place out in society involving its residents and moving away from the traditional gallery space. Taking the art to the people and creating it together. The work has more of a collective context, its not personal to the artist and the collective process happens from the very beginning and continues throughout. The next artist, similarly to Hemmer based his work on a previous event, and used participants to see his finished piece happen, but also along with Lacy he encouraged dialogue, social encounters and human interaction. But conflictingly he left no evidence of the experiment happening.
Holler Carsten Holler “The Baudouin Experiment” The Baudouin Experiment took place between 10:00am on September 27th until 10:00am on September 28th in a Belgium architectural landmark, the Atomium. The experiment consisted of 200 participants congregating in a constructed space for 24 hours. (Food, furniture and sanitary provisions were made) The experiment was undocumented and the only recordings were of the memories told by willing participants.
Holler planned this experiment in reference to an event concerning King Baudouin of Belgium. When the formalistic act of signing a new law, to liberalize abortion in Belgium was asked of the king, a personal moral complication was created, due to his catholic beliefs, to not obstruct the implementation of the new law, King Baudouin resigned from being king on the day of the signing, a new king was elected, the document was signed and King Baudouin was re-elected the next day.
The experiment observed what happened when the participants deviated from their usual behaviour under these conditions. The space was closed from the outside world; no mobiles, TV or radio were allowed. “This is to emphasise the group aspect of the experiment and to create a structure in which the ‘step-out’ can be done commonly” (Pg 144, Bishop, Claire) “People are freed from their usual constraints, and yet confined to a space and time.” (Pg 145, Bishop, Claire)
Questions raised by the artworks: • Authenticity – no documentation (Hollers) id hollers work more of an experiment than art? is the lack of documentation important? • Who is the author the participants as it is their experiences that are the only outcome or Holler as he facilitated the event. • Aesthetic quality – can it be art? How do we view it as art, when we can’t view it happening? • Does the space it takes part in influence the viewers experience and views towards it, are we more likely to relate to Hemmers because it fits in with the conventional understanding of art. • Working process – does the level of participation equate to good relational art? • Does relational art have a specific criteria? Can it?
“These projects all share a concern with the creative facilitation of dialogue and exchange. While it is common for a work of art to provoke dialogue among viewers, this typically occurs in response to a finished object. In these projects, on the other hand, conversation becomes an integral part of the work itself. It is refrained as an active, generative process that can help us speak and imagine beyond the limits of fixed identities, official discourse, and the perceived inevitability of partisan political conflict” pg8 Kester, Grant. H, 2004
Modernism Modernism and relational art They strive to change thinking from different sides, one creates conflicts and clashes, the other makes progress by discovering new relations betweens humans and groups, building alliances, exploring interconnectivity in society. “artists whose work derives from relational aesthetics has his or hers own form, there are no stylistic, thematic or iconographic links between them” Pg165 Bourriaud, Nicolas “Because modernism was steeped in an ‘oppositional imaginary’, to borrow a phrase from Gilbert Durand, it worked with breaks and clashes, and cheerfully dishonoured the past in the name of the future. It was based on conflict, whereas the imaginary of our period is concerned with negotiations, links and coexistence” pg 166 Kester, Grant. H
Bibliography From Participation: Documents of contemporary art, Edited by Claire Bishop, London, 2006 Benjamin, Walter, ‘The Author as Producer’ Bishop, Claire, ‘From Participation: Documents of contemporary art’, London, 2006 Bishop, Claire, ‘The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents’ Bourriaud, Nicolas, ‘Relational Aesthetics’ (1998) Holler, Carsten, ‘the Baudouin/Boudewijn Experiment: A deliberate, non-fatalistic, large scale group experiment in Deviation’ (2000) Kester, Grant, ‘Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art’ References Suzanne lacy website Rafael Lozano-Hemmer website
