After much thought about what to do with my caravan pieces, I think I have finally found a solution which incorporates everything I want the audience to feel when wiewing or experiencing the work. I will install most of the pieces in a 4ft by 5ft by 4ft tall box, contained on all sides apart from the front, where the inside will be viewed from. Inside will be the caravan pieces, for example the table, seat, cupboard hob and sink, all life sized and arranged as if it were a real caravan compressed into a much smaller space. In this space will be playing on repeat the sound of rain on a roof and a whistling kettle, repetitively boiling as if the viewer is trapped in this claustrophobic caravan, in the rain, with nothing to do but make tea.
There are some questions to be answered in relation to the viewer to make this installation / sculpture as successful as possible. Firstly, should the viewer be allowed or encouraged to sit in the interior, and feel the claustrophobia first hand, or will just looking at the arrangement suffice? I like the idea that someone could get inside, and I don't think I would disencourage this if someone were to get inside. I was also thinking about what Louisa said, about a theme of my work possibly being about people touching my work, and I think in this case it would work really well, because my interest lies in the grotty qualities of the pieces themselves. How will people know they can get in? Do I even tell them or just let them? The caravan fittings are life-size and the box is much smaller, so it will be a tight squeeze, but this is my intention. Theres often an unwritten rule in the gallery space that you can't touch the artwork, which could be problematic if I especially want people to get inside.
Another is again to do with the two components of the work, something which I have had problems with throughout. I won't be playing the film with the rest of the caravan, and I don't think I will even play it on the reverse side of the box as in the drawing, because I feel this is a separate entity in itself, and I find the objects have a much more desirable quality to them. However, I will have to wait until I have completely installed the caravan pieces to decide whether I definitely need the sound piece or not. I have a gut feeling that I will use it to evoke more of a sense of being in the caravan (I found that a lot of people remember certain tiny details of caravan holidays, like the whistling kettle, rather than remembering the set up of the interior). I think a lot of these decisions can't be made through drawings but only through setting up the installation.
Another is again to do with the two components of the work, something which I have had problems with throughout. I won't be playing the film with the rest of the caravan, and I don't think I will even play it on the reverse side of the box as in the drawing, because I feel this is a separate entity in itself, and I find the objects have a much more desirable quality to them. However, I will have to wait until I have completely installed the caravan pieces to decide whether I definitely need the sound piece or not. I have a gut feeling that I will use it to evoke more of a sense of being in the caravan (I found that a lot of people remember certain tiny details of caravan holidays, like the whistling kettle, rather than remembering the set up of the interior). I think a lot of these decisions can't be made through drawings but only through setting up the installation.
In the recent Yoko Ono exhibition at the Baltic it was left to the guards/gallery invidulators to inform people that you could touch. However their very presence alters how you might respond. Perhaps you could ask a few friends to sit in occasionally, if an audience see someone else doing something and not getting told off then they will make a move.
ReplyDeleteThe drawings are really rather lovely, quite melancholic. You are planning the space, I know, but they have a quality of their own, at least on screen. I'd like to see the actual drawings.
ReplyDeleteAs to your box, the only way to tell if it will work is to build it, but it would be useful to make some models first and these would also have a quality of their own.
I am thinking about audiences and how they can access this idea of yours of a claustrophobic space and a dreary, melancholic atmosphere. It seems to me that you can set out a series of images or objects to be explored that will trigger the kind of memories and atmosphere that you are searching for that could act as a counterpart to your space to sit it, or even replace it entirely.
One problem with inviting the audience to touch or climb or sit is that they often don't want to, so you may need some strategy to entice them in as Garry says above.
Strangely, I am working on the exact same issues myself at the moment. In my project, sound will act as a bridge between the audience and the object, and the audience themselves will act as a bridge for the transmission of the sound waves. I don't think this is the solution for you, but what I am saying is that there should be some integrity of process, something inherent in the work which demands that the audience sits and that this would make a stronger work than relying on behavioural tricks such as asking friends to interact as a kind of ice breaker.
Also, if the work is sculpturally strong, which I think it might be, and the supporting drawings introduce the imaginative leap to atmosphere, why do they need to get in? They are already inside it metaphorically.
Louisa