Eliasson & the 'virtual'

Some ideas bought up in The Kaleidoscopic Eye (Mori Art Museum, 2009) catalogue essay. Ironically, for a show about perception, I could hardly read the text due to it being printed in metallic silver and upon photocopying the pages for my own reference the copies printed out almost completely blank.

'[it is] about a field of events in which nothing objective is produced, in which conditions are set to play to allow a zone of virtuality to hover at the edge of actualisation.' Jonathan Crary, (in discussing Olafur Eliasson's work.) Deleuze's philosophy of the virtual as being that which is not yet seeable, explainable or representable through existing concepts. So the virtual may not be actualised so much as to be expressed, articulated or understood by the human eye- but may begin to exist in such experiential works as Eliasson’s. There is a potential for the 'virtual' to conflate or cross over to the 'real' and hence produce a particular, unique experience for the viewer. Makes the suggestion that through such art we are able to experience not only the external world but also experience the act of sensibility itself. Thus the actualisation of the virtual must involve the emergence of an event not deducible from the conditions that proceed it. By complicating the process of perception (through disorientation or reconfiguration) artists counteract what object theory has tried to accomplish over decades and hence with such works there is a radical change in our understanding of objectivity.

I enjoy how Eliasson speaks about his work as an experiment with human awareness, the viewer being an integral part of the work as well as the subject viewing the work (both subject & object at once?). Also the mention of the making process being open as light bulbs, motors, configurations etc. for each work are not hidden but rather the working devices are left apparent to the viewer.

However, and perhaps I am being cynical to suggest, with all its potential for participation and interaction as alluded to in his writing the work itself comes across as more aesthetic than utilitarian. That said it is enormously experiential work of which I have only caught a couple of in real life. I am heading to Sydney later this month to checkout the exhibition at the MCA before it shuts so may have something more to add to this post Eliasson immersion.

need to consider

(re)cognition

'virtual' & 'reality'

conscious of the act of perception itself

question the notion of objectivity

expanded media- interface more directly with an audience

interactive performance- make art experiential in new ways.