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Experiential Viewing (Participation, time and audio in interactive art)

By

Kirk Rawlins

MFA in Visual Arts

Art Institute of Boston

January 2009

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Abstract.

This paper proposes physical interaction, sound and the passage of time as

important elements in promoting a more participatory viewer experience. These

foundational components have been present in my work from an early stage. Their use

and changing prominence in my work is explored as my methods of interactivity have

evolved. It is proposed that the viewer’s experience is changed as they become an active

participant through physical interaction with and mental contribution to an interactive

work. I consider how the viewer’s memories, expectations and emotions contribute to a

work in my effort to examine experience as art and art as experience.

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I. Dialogue through interaction

“This is really my principle that art is really an excuse to have a dialogue.”

– Douglas Gordon

Professionally I have spent most of my career

dealing with user interaction. I entered the MFA

program having spent the previous 15 years in the world

of interactive design and marketing where my work

generally took the form of a CD, DVD or website (Fig.

1). I enjoy the combination of technology, animation,

audio and video all working together to create an interactive experience. There is a

pleasure in enticing someone to interact with your creation. As a fine artist I have

naturally been inclined to include interactivity, motion, audio and temporal elements in

my work. This is not a new idea in fine art. It was in October 1959 that Allan Kaprow

organized his first happening, 18 Happenings in 6 parts. These events were scripted

combinations of performance and audience participation. In 1967 Jesus Soto began

creating “penetrables”. These 3-dimensional works consisted of wires, cords, or tubes

hanging from the ceiling in a grid. The viewer then moved through or penetrated the

space, interacting with the piece physically. Soto commented, “… in art there are no

longer observers but participants” (Pau-loso 29). Since 1974 Franz West’s fitting

pieces—Passstücke—have been designed to “turn traditional art viewers into ‘users’”

(Kelsey 323). West felt that “use was not an option; it was a requirement integral to [his]

Fig. 1

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conception of art so that only by being used did the Passstücke become art in the first

place” (Kelsey 323).

In my current interactive sculptures and audio micro-installations I seek to use

sparse physical components combined with temporal and audio elements to revise the

role of the viewer; moving them beyond the role of passive observer to that of participant.

This seems a natural extension of my background in digital interactivity, but arriving at

this point has involved a series of unexpected detours.

In the commercial world the movement and the interaction I designed were a

means to an end. As an artist, am I also using movement and interaction as a means to an

end? To answer this question I began to investigate the motive behind my work. The way

in which we explain our desire to make art influences our actual practice of making. The

San Francisco based artist Anna Conti identified three categories of desire1: 1. Inner-

directed [process oriented], 2. Outer-directed [communication oriented], 3. Commodity

[goal oriented] (Conti). My art generally has its beginnings in the first category, inner-

directed. But my background as a visual communicator tends to take over and I begin

looking for ways to establish a dialogue with the viewer. This progression from inner-

directed work to outer-directed work can be seen in the art I created during my first few

terms in the program.

Early in my MFA experience I tried to make art which I hoped might pique the

curiosity of the viewer through its unique form and intimate scale. But in reality it was

1 Chuck Close, with his elaborate, time-consuming and detail-oriented process may exemplify an artist with an inner direction and little care for viewer interpretation. While Judy Chicago’s work extends to issues other than feminism, she is almost inexorably linked to the concepts surrounding it. She is serving an inner direction but it is clear that she seeks to add her voice to a cause. And, when it comes to seeking fame and visibility through art, who is a better standard bearer than Andy Warhol (Conti)?

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for me. It was about form, proportions and materials. In many ways this was a reaction to

my commercial work which was primarily digital. I might spend weeks or even months

on a project which existed only on a hard drive. It was nothing more than a computer file

of ones and zeros. There was no physical manifestation or record of my work. I

recognized that I missed the tactile component of working with materials; cutting,

joining, shaping and interacting with them. I found myself

drawn to creating art which gave me the opportunity to

interact physically with materials.

In addition to the tactile component, my inner-

directed work grew out of my attraction to mechanisms and

construction. Since my childhood I have been interested in

making and building. As a little boy, one of my favorite

books was called The Big Cleanup (Fig. 2). The story

centers around a boy named Peter, and his trusty dog,

Maurice. Peter’s mom has instructed him to clean his room. She provides him with two

boxes and tells him to throw out everything he doesn’t need— putting those items in one

box. In the second box he is to put the things he just can’t live without. Every thing Peter

picks up serves as the genesis for a daydream. He imagines the wonderful things he could

create with each item even going so far as to draw up plans for wonderfully useful

contraptions such as a doggie wheelchair (Weiss). The Big Cleanup has had a direct

bearing on the form and process of my art. It revealed my own desire to make objects and

collect things. Ever since, I have felt that there were problems to be solved, devices to be

created and that it could all be managed with a box full of stuff and a little creativity.

Fig. 2

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Although I had determined to create kinetic sculpture while pursuing an MFA, I

initially created work void of the stereotypical mechanical components and temporal

movements. I was avoiding the mechanism, but my art was

informed by the idea of motion. In an early work, an

aluminum sculpture (Fig. 3), movement was implied through

the size and position of the flat metal discs. Their frenzied

composition is a seeming composite of various stages of

eruption from the base. It is more reminiscent of a Futurist

painting than of an Arthur Ganson mechanism or a Jean

Tinguely construction.

My work from this time was enjoyable for me due to the pure exploration of form

and materials, but I felt drawn to mechanisms, assemblage and obvious physical

movement. I had to concur with the lament of Gabo in the Realist Manifesto, “Futurism

has not gone farther than the effort to fix on the canvas a purely optical reflex . . . It is

obvious now to everyone of us that by simple graphic registration of a row of

momentarily arrested movements one cannot recreate movement itself” (Rickey 221).

A SENSE OF PLAY

In The Big Cleanup, Peter was playing. I began to investigate play as it related to

my art. I moved beyond work which was almost entirely inner-directed and began to

experiment with mechanisms in an effort to explicitly invite the participation of the

viewer. Johan Huizinga, investigates in his book Homo Ludens (Man as Player) the

concept that our culture is actually formed on the basis of play. He suggests that our

Fig. 3

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innate sense of play influences everything from language to war. As humans we are hard-

wired to play; it is not just something we enjoy, it is something we must do (Huizinga

22).

I drew upon my fascination for mechanisms and set

about creating a play experience for the viewer. In an untitled

work from 2006 (Fig. 4), users can operate levers to

manipulate the movement of steel balls inside vinyl tubing

threaded through various copper tubes. As the levers are

manipulated they produce a distinct sound as the mechanisms

transfer the motion to the rods and the tubing and ultimately

the steel balls.

The process of planning and assemblage was inner directed, but I also attempted

to use the interactivity as a means to facilitate participation and thereby a dialogue with

the viewer. The nature of the dialogue was intended to be lighthearted. Man Ray once

commented, “Critics and society believe that artists should be serious, the same way that

they believe artists must starve” (Marzio 316). I was not trying to make a serious

statement. I had fun creating the mechanisms and I wanted my viewers to have a little fun

as they interacted with the piece.

This effort to provide a play experience can be seen

in a second piece from this period. The work is simply a coil

of copper wire, which encases several stainless steel balls

(Fig. 5). Holding the coil in your hands you immediately

notice that the balls will roll freely from one end of the coil to the other. As they do, they

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

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create a soft noise and generate a sensation in the palm of your hand as they rattle along

the coiled wire. In critique sessions I watched my peers and faculty alike intuitively pick

up the coil and play with it as they engaged in other activities. In many ways, this

remains one of my most successful pieces. In a very simple and direct way it engaged the

viewer physically. It invited participation. It also incorporated sound. This experience

made me think more specifically about two key elements which have become a focus of

my current work: the invitation of viewer participation and sound as a purposeful element

in my work.

Calder, Duchamp and Gabo were early to experiment with real movement, but

George Rickey was primarily responsible for codifying movement in modern sculpture

and was one of the most authoritative voices on kinetics. Rickey believed that our ability

to measure time and motion held the same relevance in kinetic art as human image and

scale held in figurative art (224). “Even the uninitiated can bring their measure and feel

that the work has something recognizable for them. This provides an entrée into non-

objective art which is endowed with movement. Movement is not, in itself, esoteric; art

which moves becomes accessible” (Rickey 224). Kinetic work presents an inherent

invitation for dialogue.

I determined through direct observation of people interacting with my work that

motion provides an initial attraction2 to a work. Motion in my work is not of the kind that

is commonly thought of in kinetic sculpture. I do not have rolling balls on tracks or

continuously moving elements driven by motors. At times motion in my work is

observable physical motion but more often it is the obvious potential for motion; 2 Engagement or dialogue with an interactive art work is occurs in three phases as defined by Edmonds, Muller and Connell. First, attractors, which get the attention of the viewer. Second, sustainers, which keep them engaged during the experience. Third, relators, which foster an ongoing relationship (Edmonds, Muller, Connell 315-16).

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something that says push me, open me, spin me, move me. This invitation to participate

strips the work bare and makes it accessible. And it is this participation through physical

interaction that creates an immediate and tangible relationship. This is of great interest to

me and is a core component of my work.

II. Participation and the temporal element

The work of Andy Goldsworthy (Fig. 6) was

introduced to me early in my MFA experience. His work was

a catalyst for broadening my vision. It made me rethink my

definition of art in general. It made me conscious of the

construct of the gallery and the academy and how artists

operate within that construct. I found his work to be very

intriguing, but I had a hard time understanding how it could

be “art”. And while it was organic, temporary, and spontaneous (none of which seemed

to have anything to do with mechanisms) it seemed to resonate with me.

I was in the process of questioning whether my work was art and, if not, what

would make it art. If Goldsworthy’s work was accepted as art, then maybe I too could

create the kind of art I wanted. I saw that process was central to Goldsworthy. But even

more important was the realization that this organic, temporary art was all about time. It

was about the time that it took for Goldsworthy to create it and the time it took for it to

decay. This temporal component is not apparent in the still images of his work but it is

central to the full experience offered by the work. This subtle but powerful employment

of time would be an important influence as my ideas of interactivity began to involve.

Fig. 6

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Maybe something didn’t have to spin around and move wildly to be effective in attracting

the viewer?

My experience with Goldsworthy’s work helped me see kinetic and interactive

artists in new ways. It helped me see beyond their mechanisms and have a better sense

for why they were creating their work. Suddenly, I found myself

discovering artists whose work was an inspiration without being a

model to be replicated. I began looking in new ways at artists like

Arthur Ganson (Fig. 7), Jean Tinguely, Tim Prentice, Lazlo

Maholy-Nagy, Benjamin Rozin, Tim Hawkinson, Theo Jansen,

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson. I

began to explore modes of interactivity, materials, scale and

technology. Moving beyond these concerns, I also began to move beyond motion for

motion’s sake. I began to look for the ways in which these artists invited their viewers to

become participants. At what level did they want the viewer to be involved? What was

the result of the interaction between the viewer and the work? I found that interaction

could be accomplished in infinite ways ranging from the turning of a very small and

delicate crank, as in some of Ganson’s early works, to an immersive physical installation

like those staged by Olafur Eliasson.

The traditional gallery environment is about looking, not about touching. As soon

as the artist invites the viewer to touch the work a conflict is set up. In his early wire

works Ganson overcomes this through the conspicuous presence of a small hand crank.

The simple hand cranks are an obvious form of supplying power to the intriguing

mechanisms. Viewers are not intimidated or overwhelmed by flashy materials or overt

Fig. 7

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technology. But equally important is the fact that his pieces are small and intimate.

Viewers are almost compelled to examine them closely and this physical proximity

breaks down a barrier because the artist actually wants the viewer to touch the work or

participate in its operation. From this I learned that scale was important to me in my work

as well. I wanted to encourage a relationship between the work and the viewer. I wanted

the viewer to feel as if the relationship was personal. Smaller works create a more

intimate sense of viewing.

On the opposite end of the scale, Olafur Eliasson involves the viewer in a large-

scale immersive experience. In Eliasson’s Room for One Color, the viewer’s visual sense

is completely hijacked. Upon entering a room the viewer finds that the color spectrum no

longer exists. Everything has become monotone, yet out in the adjoining rooms, life in

full-color continues to carry on. As I experienced this piece at the SFMOMA, I found it

disconcerting; as if I could no longer trust my senses. While this type of relationship is

different it is still centered around an experience or potential relationship. It is there

waiting for the viewer to step in, become a participant and complete the work.

As I experimented with methods for

interaction, I created a piece, which was comprised

of a series of acrylic boxes seated in turning

mechanisms with a hand crank. The boxes

contained various materials. The aesthetic of my

piece, Long-term Memory (Fig. 8), was influenced

by the materials and execution of my mentor at the

time, Boston artist Anne Lilly. Her highly Fig. 8

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refined machine works can be set into motion almost with a breath and then glide with a

mesmerizing smoothness and precision. But my desire to invite the viewer to supply the

power through direct physical interaction was clearly inspired by Arthur Ganson. This

piece begins to combine many of the characteristics that were becoming important to me.

The boxes are small and intimate. They make sound. The viewer is invited to physically

participate in the work. A handle prompts the viewer to take a simple action and become

a participant by turning the crank. The hand crank is an invitation to infuse an element of

time into the work. Time is also referenced through the formal elements as well. Some of

the materials decay as they are tumbled in the boxes. While other materials, as they are

tumbled, scratch, gouge and mar the inside of the boxes—contributing to their decay.

Because of this decay the piece actually changes over time and is different each time it is

experienced.

III. Purposeful audio

I still distinctly remember the first time I experienced sound, animation and

interactivity on a computer. It was an interactive CD-ROM by Brødurbund about the PBS

children’s character Arthur. By today’s standards the animation was primitive. The

interactivity was limited, and it was geared towards grade school-aged children. But it let

me know that I wanted to create these kinds of interactive experiences myself. And so for

15 years I have worked to engage consumers with design, audio, video, animation and

interactivity.

What I realized I was missing in my interactive artwork was sound. Some of my

pieces produced sound, but not as a purposeful element of the work. The materials in the

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boxes of Long-term Memory produced sound as they were

tumbled in their square containers. I knew they would and

was pleased that they did. But I was unaware at the time of

the importance of this sound and how to make it a vital part

of the work. In recognizing that the incorporation of

intentional sound was critical, I was reminded of Jean

Tinguely’s works. With their frightening creaks and

groans, Tinguely’s works held the audio experience equal

to that of the visual and temporal experiences. I determined I needed to include audio as

an integral component just as I had in my digital work.

The sounds produced by Tinguely’s work and those created by my boxes in Long-

term Memory were mechanical and industrial. I felt that for my audio to be engaging for

my viewers they needed to imagine themselves in the audio. It needed to be more human.

A piece, entitled Changing Knowledge (Fig. 9), is my first work to be

accompanied by an audio track. The viewer is invited to become a participant by donning

a pair of headphones and peering through the lenses of a psudeo-scientific instrument.

The headphones are intended to appear as though they are necessary in order for the

participant to receive additional feedback captured by the device. The audio track is a

recording of my voice citing changes in our understanding and perception of science and

medicine through the ages. The piece was an important step for me, but the mechanism

did not support the audio in the way I had hoped. It was too complex and became an end

unto itself. It appeared that the sculpture was to be evaluated purely on its merits as an

object. The audio component was relegated to a sideshow even though it was an integral

Fig. 9

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part of the experience. From this I learned that the element of physical interaction needed

to be simplified. While the 3-dimensional aspects of my work would remain important

they needed to be part of the whole experience and not just the pairing of sculptural and

audio components.

With the encouragement of Neil Salley, one of my mentors, I left the physical

mechanism behind and created a series of audio experiences as part of an installation. At

the time I still wanted to create immersive physical experiences like those provided by

Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell. I am so moved by the powerful sensory experiences

they create. I was really creating concepts for the installations I hoped to someday build

in an effort to encourage similarly powerful experiences for my viewers. I wrote detailed

descriptions of the anticipated viewer experience and sent them to Neil. Often we would

speak about them on the phone. Neil told me that he hoped I never built them. Because he

felt the physical execution of them would never be equal to the versions he had created of

them in his mind.

I realized that this kind of narrative audio could provide the purpose I was looking

for. I created an installation where participants put on headphones in a darkened room, sat

on a stool and selected an audio experience from a DVD menu. Based on what they hear

listeners create their own experiences in their minds. The various pieces consist almost

exclusively of my voice, with occasional supporting sound effects, as I describe an

immersive environment. Listeners are provided with some specifics but are left to fill in

much of the detail from their own memories, imaginations, experiences or desires. In

their minds they visualize the environment I describe but through their own personalized

filters.

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When we listen to a description it is difficult not to visualize in our minds what

has been described. Even though we are not having a physical, retinal experience, as

Duchamp referred to it (Seigel 111), we are nonetheless having a visual experience. And

though this experience is virtual, it triggers real emotions. It can even change our physical

state of being—changing our heart rate and breathing or producing a sweat. There can be,

as Felix Gonzalez-Torres puts it, “travel in the minds”. However, I couldn’t bring myself

to completely abandon the physical form. In fact, I felt that audio combined with a

physical form was important in inviting the viewer to graduate to touching, interacting

and becoming a participant.

Artist Janet Cardiff uses directive narration and requires the physical participation

of the listener in her installation and sound works. Cardiff seeks to create a temporary

collaboration with the viewer that often uses narrative direction in her own voice. She

relies upon the participation of the audience to complete the work but she is in control of

the experience (Williams 62, 66). She is the architect. She establishes the rules.

Establishing parameters provides an identified channel through which the viewer can

connect with the work. By providing structure and direction to the viewer’s interaction

the artist can channel what the viewer brings to the experience.

In 1997 Cardiff created an audio piece for Sculpture: Projects in Münster. Her

piece, Walk Münster was very directive. Visitors to the museum obtained a portable

cassette player, which allowed them to participate in the piece. Walk Münster was not

simply a factual narration of the kind already familiar to museum visitors (Williams 63).

“Upon pushing the play button, the participant voluntarily accepted the terms of this brief

relationship with the voice of the artist” (Williams 63). The listener’s will and experience

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became entwined with Cardiff’s direction and experience. But even with the directive

element, the listener’s personal contribution to the piece is significant as Cardiff

“conjur[s] up a steady stream of associations that are as diverse as the participants’

memories” (Williams 63). There is a physical engagement required of the listener that is

an essential part of the experience. Cardiff directs the listener on where to walk and how

fast, when to stop and where to look. In commenting on the piece Cardiff identifies the

importance of audio and its interconnectedness with our perceptions.

I think many people long for a more synesthetic relationship to the world. I've

read that babies don't have the same sensual differentiation that adults do. . . .

Perhaps when the differentiation between senses finally develops in a child there

is also a new alienation between their body and the world, this split . . . between

our inside thoughts and our outside perceptions, between location and events. . . .

To me it [is] about connection rather than alienation (Egoyan, 65).

My audio works do not incorporate the same level of physical engagement as

many of Cardiff’s works. She seeks to draw attention to the inner thoughts and spaces

through contrast – by directing the listener to move through physical spaces. My work is

concerned with directing the listener to move through inner, virtual spaces. But this is

still facilitated through physical means. The viewer must become a participant and

interact physically with the work. There is a formal sculptural element that they see and

touch. The sound waves impact their eardrums and they hear the audio. But the vision

they create in their minds is formed by their perception. What does the audio mean to

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them? How does the filter of their cumulative personal life experience impact what they

visualize internally?

Though in a different way than Cardiff, I do invite the viewer to interact

physically with my work. Through this interaction they become a participant. By

introducing an audio element, particularly a narrative one, the participant is invited to

become an active collaborator in creating the visual experience afforded by the piece.

This collaboration fosters a commitment level, which opens the way for the participant to

have a powerful experience. As James Turrell has remarked

It’s a little bit like when you’re reading a book and people pass through the place

where you are reading, you don’t notice them because you’re really in a space

generated by the author, more than in the space where you’re sitting and reading.

This price of admission you’ve paid to enter, by giving yourself over to the story,

needs to be done with art as well” (Whittaker).

IV. Individual conversations

I return now to my initial thought. At its core, my work is about my desire to have

a dialogue with the viewer. I have identified tools that I believe will assist me in

establishing that relationship—the elements of participation, audio and time. How can

they be used more effectively? Is one element more important than another? How do I

provide sufficient direction for the experience yet still leave room for the viewer to define

the experience on their own terms? How do I suggest a direction but not point to an

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outcome? How do I foster a more meaningful experience for the viewer?3

Several months ago, the opportunity arose to experiment in a new way with my

narrative audio pieces. A friend and I were discussing my work. He was not familiar with

my more recent audio pieces. I had them on an mp3 player. But there was no

“installation” environment. I simply gave him the player and some headphones and sent

him out to sit on my front porch. I live in the country and it was a quiet summer evening.

There were three pieces, each several minutes in length. They are the works cited

previously in which my voice describes distinct immersive environments.

In one of the pieces my friend listened to, entitled Tainted Lenses, I describe a

room in which there is nothing but a spiral staircase rising through the ceiling. The

sounds of footsteps are heard as the listener climbs the stairs and ascends into a darkened

chamber. The darkness is filled with glowing vertical threads of light. Floating at the

bottom of each thread are glowing discs of light. The listener becomes aware of the hum

of conversation; voices which cannot be discerned. The listener moves through the room

with just enough space to maneuver between the hanging discs. Around the edge of the

room are small dimly glowing images in organic clusters. The images are of people. As

the listener looks closely at the images a single voice rises above the homogenous drone.

The voice relates demographic information apparently related to the image. After looking

at and listening to several voices it becomes apparent that though the pictures are

different, the voices do not change. Returning to the middle of the room the listener 3 Stephen Auslender offers a desired outcome for interactive art in his dissertation entitled,“The creation of a spectator-operated kinetic-environmental sculpture and its relevancy to contemporary art”. I share his desire to provide, through my work, an environment where the viewer can become more conscious of the actions he [needs] to take to actually experience the artwork. It [is] here that the potential exist[s] for increasing the spectator’s own self awareness,for making him more sensitive to and more conscious of his own inner feelings, thoughts and responses to the external world (Auslander 152).

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examines the hanging discs more closely and realizes that the images on the walls can

also be viewed through the lenses. But, at each lens the real voice of the people in the

images are heard and personal information from their past—formative experiences—are

shared. The listener moves among several of the discs listening intently. Eventually I

describe the listener’s exit from the room but ask them to think about the people they

have become acquainted with.

I returned several times to check on my friend. He was sitting, eyes closed, head

back, listening. The last time I returned he had taken off the headphones but was still

sitting, staring into the distance. I asked him what he was thinking about.

He spent nearly the next hour telling me about a very personal experience from

his life. He indicated how the imagery he had visualized as he listened to my audio pieces

had taken him to a place where he had remembered this event. And he explained how the

scenes I had described in my pieces prompted him to recall the experiences he had as he

resolved the situation in his life, ultimately emerging challenged and tried, but full of

hope. The ideal, as defined by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, had occurred. “… The ideal thing

is when something takes place, when there is some action, when there is some movement,

when there is some travel in the minds, when the work becomes some kind of catalytic

element for something to happen, for something to become possible” (Obrist 314). In

this case there was a physical interaction. I gave the viewer a pair of headphones and an

mp3 player and sat him on my porch. But there was no art object and no gallery. I believe

this actually contributed to the experience; a comfortable environment “allows

possibilities for contemplating art … we only truly exercise our mind, and become

aesthetically sensitive, when relaxed” (Kelsey 327). This made me reflect even more

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upon the power of audio to invite the participation of the viewer and reminded me of

Janet Cardiff’s comment that “sound does come into your subconscious more directly

than visual information” (Egoyan).

In one of my recent works, Selective Listening

(Fig. 10), the viewer is presented with a collection of

small wooden boxes. The lids of the boxes have pulls

made of braided twine, beckoning the viewer to

participate by lifting them. To further entice the viewer

there are soft but audible sounds emanating from the

boxes. As a viewer becomes involved and lifts a lid, one stream of sound rises in volume

and clarity above the others. Now a collaborator, the participant can choose which lids

and how many lids to lift, creating their own mix of mental imagery as they consider the

audio coming from the boxes.

The audio at first seems to make no sense. There are recognizable sounds of a

small town parade complete with marching band and antique car horns. There are clips

from historic American speeches delivered by figures ranging from Lou Gehrig to Ronald

Reagan. There is my voice and the voices of my children recorded as I worked on my art

in my home. The audio is a self-portrait.

There are six boxes each containing a speaker, which plays a unique audio

channel. The six channels contain unique narrative and soundscape elements. Each track

is a different length and all tracks are set to loop, creating an ever-changing mix of audio.

The participant adds to this mix by selecting which box[es] are open and which audio is

made more clear or mixed with that of other open boxes. As the participant listens to their

Fig. 10

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own unique mix of audio they form in their minds their visualization of what they hear

emanating from the boxes. They determine which audio they choose to focus on and

which they allow to fade into the background. By lifting certain lids they make certain

portions of the audio more clear. Through this audio they form their unique version of the

portrait being presented. It is possible that they may ponder what they do or don’t have in

common with the audio portrait of the artist. But it is rather more likely that they are

reflecting on their own mental imagery—cued by the self-configured audio presentation

they have just listened to.

VI. Conclusion

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you

get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings - words shrink things that seem

timeless when they are in your head, to no more than living size when they are brought

out.” – Stephen King

My initial attraction to kinetic work was founded in a fascination for mechanisms

and form. While these remain important to me, I have chosen in my current work to

remove the focus from the object or the mechanism. This is done in an effort to create

opportunity for the viewer to focus on the experience as opposed to the object. As

viewers of art we are conditioned to observe and thoughtfully consider the work. But

with our attention so narrowly focused, I’m afraid we often miss the full experience

offered by the work.

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I seek to involve the viewer as a participant because I believe that as a viewer

assumes the role of participant they are more favorably positioned to experience the

work—as opposed to simply observe the work. In order for participation to occur some

barriers must be overcome. In my work I seek to overcome those barriers through

intimate scale and the invitation for physical interaction. I seek to facilitate the

experience through integrated audio elements. Audio inherently creates a temporal

experience because the entire experience is not immediately available. You can certainly

have a temporal experience with a painting, sculpture or photo. As you literally spend

time in front of the piece you notice new things and have new thoughts enter your mind.

But technically, everything the work has to offer is immediately available to you, the

instant you step in front of it. With an audio piece this is not possible. You simply cannot

experience second eighty-five of the audio until you arrive there. Your relationship to the

piece is directly tied to the time you spend with it. If you listen to different portions on

different occasions, your experience, quite literally, is not the same.

The more engaged we are in an experience the richer the perception of the

experience tends to be. Madeleine Grynsztejn, curator of Olafur Eliasson’s “Take Your

Time” show at the SFMOMA comments

The key issue is the role of the engaged spectator or user. The question is whether

the activities or actions of that user in fact constitute the artwork. . . we need to

take it to the point of saying that the user is the source of the artwork. And that

psychology—the memories, expectations, moods, and emotions—that a person

brings to the work is an important part of it (Eliasson 58).

23

As I refine my use of limited sculptural elements, I hope to invite a deliberate

physical engagement of the viewer’s senses as a catalyst for their active collaboration in

the work. Through the audio I present, I seek to encourage the spectator to integrate their

memories, expectations, moods and emotions in the experience. This may not be a

conscious act on their part. It may be that their experiencing of the work will draw out, or

bring to the surface their personal feelings and make them more accessible as a part of the

work. “All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings

the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner

qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act” (Duchamp Art News).

My work is ultimately about providing an experience. It is my hope that viewers’

memories of the my art will be more than the audio they heard and the object they saw

and touched. My hope is that the real art will be the unique experience they had and the

feelings it triggered within them—an experiential viewing.

24

Works Cited

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Sculpture and its Relevancy to Contemporary Art.1981.

Conti, Anna. Anna L. Conti - Working Artist's Journal. April 7, 2004. September 20,

2008.<http://bigcrow.com/anna/journal/bestof4.html>.

Duchamp, Marcel. "The Creative Act" Art News Summer (1957).

Edmonds, Ernest, Lizzie Muller, and Matthew Connell. "On Creative Engagement." Visual

Communication 5.3 (2006): 307-22.

Egoyan, Atom. "Janet Cardiff." Bomb.79: May 14, 2008.

<http://www.bombsite.com/issues/79/articles/2463>.

Eliasson, Olafur, et al. Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson : [Publ. on the Occasion of an Exhibition

at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, September 8, 2007 - February 24, 2008 ...].

San Francisco [u.a.: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [u.a.], 2007.

Huizinga, Johan,. Homo Ludens; a Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press,

1955.

Kelsey, John. "Tools of Engagement." Art Forum October (2008): 320-30.

Marzio, Peter C. "Art, Technology and Satire: The Legacy of Rube Goldberg." Leonardo 5.4

(1972): 315-24.

Pau-Llosa, Ricardo. "Jesus Soto." Sculpture 1997: 26.

25

Rickey, George W. "The Morphology of Movement: A Study of Kinetic Art." Art Journal 22.4

(1963): 220-31.

Seigel, Jerrold E. The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp : Desire, Liberation, and the Self in

Modern Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Weiss, Harvey. The Big Clean-Up. New York [etc.]: Abelard-Schuman, 1967.

Whittaker, Richard. "Greeting the Light." : April 4, 2007.

<http://www.conversations.org/issue.php?id=2&st=99-1-turrell>.

Williams, Gregory. "Review: The Voice of Author/ity." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art

20.2 (1998): 62-7.