MARCH 2023
The work is the space: Generating conversation through mixed-media compositions.
(Keywords: Sound installation, Interactive installation, mixed-media composition, open-form composition, performance art, social change, performance space.)
The live installation Click to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies as a case study.
Art has a long history as a form of political discourse and has been a medium for social action and change since the 1960s, with various practices and creative processes evolving at the time, such as Activist (or Protest) Art, Community Art and collaborative processes, and Socially Engaged Practice. The spatial aspect has been a subject of continuous research in these politically charged genres, concerning not only the performance space’s nature, physical environment and semiology but also the relationship between the artwork and the subject's own environment (e.g. Art commenting on rules applied in public spaces performed in those same public spaces). This paper will explore another connection between space and artistic work, focusing on mixed-media compositions and sound installations. Created as spaces for micro-communities to evolve, those works reflect power relations and social action through conversations between participants and collective decision-making.
The main discussion will develop around the composition Click to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies (or Click to the Dark Side) (2022), a live installation for nine musicians, nine smartphones and a regulator, focusing on internet interruptions and invasive advertising. It draws its material from in-stream invasive advertising on YouTube and the tracking cookies used to make online content and advertisements more and more personalised. During the performance, the musicians, divided into groups of three, had to use their mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc.) to read the scores formed as YouTube playlists. These playlists were interrupted by advertisements at different moments for each musician, disrupting the continuity of their performance and forcing the rest of the group to wait for them by manipulating the timing of their own advertisements in order to complete several tasks as a group, for example play in unison. As the advertisements were played by Bluetooth speakers scattered throughout the performance space, the audience was able to move between them, while stopping to observe the scores at the performers’ screens and discuss with them and with each other. At the same time, the audience had the option to answer a questionnaire projected on one of the performance space’s walls, using their mobile phones or pen and paper. The questions were related to both the subject of the performance and the design and setting of the installation. The main purpose of this questionnaire was to invite the audience to discuss internet interruptions and online privacy while interacting with the installation and performers. They could also see their answers forming a word cloud on the screen and compare them to the responses of other audience members. A few months after the performance, I had an online discussion with some performers and audience members, which was one of the main sources for this paper. With this installation, I intended to create a space for discussion between participants and investigate the dynamics of the micro-community created in it.
Generating discussion in a live context.
In the last few decades, there has been a growing body of action-oriented events and ‘educational projects involving new media and interactive exhibitions’ (Schavemaker in Brown, 2014, 239) that stimulate dialogue with audiences. According to Margriet Schavemaker, those curatorial models can be ‘academic conferences, lectures and debates that lead to the publication or an archive of the presented works’. In that case, we need to consider the type of audience we intend to approach and who we attract eventually. Is it accessible to everyone? Is it understood by anyone who would like to participate? Are audiences willing to attend this type of event? The second model Schavemaker suggests is the community model, a space created for conversation around a central theme, which ‘encourages debate with members of the local environment’ and leads to learning through discussion. Here the curator or artist takes the role of the moderator. The festival model has ‘a temporary character and is a mixture of several types of art and artistic events taking place under the roof of an institution’ (Brown, 2014, 242). According to Schavemaker they ‘aim to provoke critical reflection on the themes, together with direct experience of the works and spaces.’ Finally, she suggests the exhibition model, where the public programme is ‘fused with the artwork’ (Brown, 2014, p. 244). The level of engagement and interaction between audience members as well as work and audience members in these four models varies but conversation is not a priority or the purpose of the event in none of them.
In the following chapters, I will discuss an approach, where the artwork - in that case any type of interactive style, including performance, installation, and mixed-media composition - is turned into a space for conversation and potentially social action.
The main question of this chapter is related to social inclusion: How can we change society and bring equality when we don’t all participate in that change? According to Polizzi, ‘when everyone is included in the process there are more chances for the policies to shorten the educational and economic gaps between all members of society (Goldstein, 2020, 11), while Held (Held, 2006, 153) points out that ‘the Elitist model reduces citizens to spectators
of the political process. Walton et al. (Goldstein, 2020, 158) suggest that ‘participation activities, like participatory research workshops, improve skills of researching, discerning and selecting information’, necessary skills for citizens of an active society. Interactivity in the arts reflects change. Ranciere (cited in Brown, 2014, 234) argues that ‘an experience - as a journey - involves an openness to the world and cannot leave us where we began’. The interactive aspect of contemporary art may reflect the active and informed citizen, who is part of the change. But what happens when audiences resist interacting with the work and reject participation, and why may this happen?
The secondary audience of an interactive artwork - in that context, the group that receives the message indirectly by observing instead of participating - should not be blamed for not being active. As art collective Freee suggests, ‘participation is not an obligation, nor is it a solution to social problems’ (Brown, 2014), but still, it is a way to question power structures and investigate different models and combinations and bring them forward to discussion within the artwork. That design helps amplify the audience members’ thoughts that couldn’t be held and discussed otherwise in a neutral environment, besides training people into having politically and socially-centred conversations within artistic context. Those opinions become realities when shared and discussed by a group of people and compared to theories and other philosophies, personal or not. Furthermore, by being part of a simulation of their daily routine all participants are able to analyse it from another perspective and compare their actions in both situations, reality and simulation. Bringing a group of people to a space where unfamiliar actions take place and new relationships need to evolve may be overwhelming and create a feeling of alienation, but an audience that feels equally new to the setting while being trained by the work itself, thus feeling safer in it, may be more willing to interact and participate. Moreover, the ability to understand ‘how the machine functions’ by being exposed to the process (or parts of it) and being able to ask questions about the set-up and use of scores, maps and materials, changes spectators’ perception of contemporary art and the way they interact with it and ‘use’ it as an educative tool. The artwork becomes a welcoming space for conversation, as the audience is able to be, in a way, part of it and feel more included, understanding the context and every participant’s role in it. Consequently, we shouldn’t expect every audience member to be eager to participate without feeling part of the community surrounding the work, especially in societies where art education is insubstantial and the audiences’ exposure to non-traditional art means may be rare to inexistent.
Juliet Steyn (Brown, 2014) considers the interactive design ‘tyrannical’ and believes ‘there’s a problematic relationship between the experiencing subject, the object and the work, as it is the experience of a ‘captivated’ subject’. But such a design may lead the spectator to an action that will bring them closer to an understanding of the subject in question, although the spectator should always have the choice to follow the instructions, interact, and experience the work. An interactive artwork should always leave space for non-interactive interpretations and secondary audiences, to be accessible and fulfil its purpose of being inclusive and offering solutions instead of rejecting groups of spectators with different characters, experiences and artistic backgrounds. What the artist wants to communicate is, most of the time, ‘inscribed’ in their design and level of formalisation of the created ‘climatic zone’ (Stein in Brown, 2014, 229). At the same time, everyone should be given the chance to interact with the work, even in different ways and levels, to avoid creating a two-speed audience, which reflects a two-speed society (although there may be reasons for doing the exact opposite if, for example, the artist wants to mirror these inequalities in the society). Still, the secondary audience consists of subconscious performers who develop their own roles within the interactive design of the work. Consequently, each member of the audience perceives the work in a totally different way and by having the chance - through its form - to have informal discussions as part of the performance a world of dozens of views and opinions opens in front of us. In that potentially neutral ground, we are all able to ‘practice’ discussing those different views and opinions even with strangers, while the work becomes a medium for training towards social change and progress through discussion and collective decision-making.
In Click to the Dark Side, the audience was not led towards specific conclusions suggested by me or the performers, as they had the chance to exchange opinions. The questionnaire was just one form of indirect conversation, but the actual discussion was happening in the physical space of the performance. Audience members mentioned that discussions were made around the simplest things, such as the way they can access the application and how it works, to more complicated discussions about the role of art in social change. An audience member mentions that the tasks were not clear to them from the beginning, but others approached and helped them. Their case wasn’t the only one. Participants kept helping each other at the beginning of the performance and then proceeded in having conversations instigated by the on-screen questionnaire. Another audience member believes that I could have invited the audience to move around the space and approach the performers and installation through text on the screen, but it seems unnecessary, as the audience themselves helped and trained each other, building an active community. One of the participants mentioned that being able to see how the musicians chose their next move and interacted with each other made them curious about the material and process. Because of the set-up and information given to the audience, they figured out that they were allowed to ask the performers about the rules and what was happening at any particular moment. The audience was being trained in the new experience from that unusual relationship with the performers and the more time they were spending in it the more familiar they were becoming with that new role.
Performers observed that they went through a similar situation during the first rehearsal. These actions resulted in the formation of new relationships between audience members and performers, even though there was no instruction about a possible interaction between them. They believe this brought them back to the original reasons behind choosing to become musicians, something far from competition and perfectionism and closer to communicating ideas and building relationships with their audience and colleagues. The conversation aspect was included in the way the groups of musicians had to interact too, as they had to take several decisions about the outcome of the performance and the use of video advertisements. One of the teams unintentionally created roles for each member, another was making decisions by ‘voting’ for or against a member’s suggestion while performing.
Technologies and media of interaction: The familiar tool.
Current experiences and lifestyles of the Western World are bathed in information, while interactive devices train us to new understandings, and ways of thinking and interacting with our environment - physical or digital. This new reality calls for art media that are approachable and art that is interpretable by audiences living in the Information Age. Run suggests that ‘cultural constructions of time and space are functions of the technologies through which people engage with the world and with each other, and of the materials and symbol systems in which they codify, represent, and communicate their experience. As such technologies, symbols, and materials change, so too do the ways in which cultures conceptualise time and space’ (Ran, 2009, 11). In Click to the Dark Side, most spectators were connected to the piece through an object that belongs to their daily routine, although they had the choice to use pen and paper for their responses.
Besides the familiarity with the medium that made most spectators feel secure in an unusual situation, the mobile phones and use of an app for the poll intrigued them to answer all questions, as they would have done at an online game or quiz. An audience member mentions that at some point being in the space felt like playing a game, as until that moment they were used to being told to switch off their mobile phones in performance spaces. In Click to the Dark Side, the instruction was the exact opposite. They believe that the new condition stimulated interest and an urge to explore the space and its limitations. The same person believes that if they only had to press a single button while sitting or standing at the same place throughout the whole duration of the event, they wouldn’t participate continuously. The opportunity to say their opinion and explore the space without being given strict instructions or rules was intriguing. Throughout the duration of the event, I saw the familiar scene of people interacting, walking and observing their surroundings while stopping to use their devices. By using a medium they are in contact with every day, the transgression to an unfamiliar setting became smoother and presumably faster.
Steyn argues that there has been a shift ‘from education to entertainment and from the spectator to the consumer’, associating the spectator with the ‘active’ and the consumer with the ‘passive’, and suggests that ‘the difference between interactive art and entertainment is that the first one is an active engagement (and it stimulates progress or asks for change), while the second reflects the service industry and is a commodity for sale’ (Brown, 2014, 231). In the case of Click to the Dark Side entertainment led to action (answering the questions) and discussion about the action, which was the installation’s main objective. Most participants believe that it served both purposes, as entertainment and an educative project. The memory of the object and everything that resulted from it (questions, thoughts, conversations, further research on the subject) is what remains and builds on knowledge. Because of the different backgrounds of audience members, the object may be perceived in different ways leading to different realities and knowledge. But what if the work’s format encourages participants to exchange and discuss those different realities in the created space of an interactive installation or composition?
The performance space: A neutral ground?
The physical setting and accessibility of the performance space play their own role in making the artwork more approachable to diverse audiences. The institution can be a neutral ground for interactive projects with a socio-political base, as it is ‘an environment both within and detached from society’ (Brown, 2004, 247). But do we need the performance space to be detached from society when we want to touch on social issues? An institution, as the established artistic practice and the spaces it occupies, will predominantly be defined by very specific rules which may restrict the audience from openly expressing their opinions and suggesting actions, as well as freely interacting with an open work. In the online discussion, some audience members expressed the assumption that art in museums and galleries is addressed to specific audiences, validating the belief that the institution has been exclusive to several social groups, including audiences that are not trained in artistic matters. Moreover, art is affected by social conservatism and it may be challenging for new styles and approaches to settle in, while art organisations try to survive by selling tickets and keeping their customers satisfied. Gavin Grindon (Grindon, 2010) suggests that ‘art institutions do not want to take risks, and will prefer art that has a political edge to it, but not art that is radically transgressive’. Artists and audiences associated with these styles are excluded from the institutions and driven towards alternative spaces. Grindon continues, ‘in many cases, artists prefer to remain outside of (...) institutions that have hierarchical structures, corporate sponsors and the power to censor’, which they are willing to do in order to prepare the audience for a new idea by smoothing it out in various ways. Works performed in public spaces do not require this adjustment, as their purpose is to intervene and change the power balance while creating opportunities for citizens to interact.
Community spaces are a potentially ideal ground for this type of work. Against the traditional display, the rules of the gallery, where the spectator is compelled to adapt to a certain behaviour (being quiet and respectful towards the work, the space and other visitors) and where conversation and interaction are not ‘allowed’ or at least encouraged, especially between strangers (you mostly interact with friends or family members, who possibly have similar life experiences, understanding and views with you). Common public spaces are a first step towards a new design of ‘functional’ art, as it brings the spectator away from formalised types of interaction with the space and work and suggest that other conditions may also be new. In that context, maybe we should talk about the neutral space of the artwork, the space created by the artist for the community to interact, instead of the neutral physical grounds of institutions.
The type of audience is also reflected in the space. A public space will attract viewers and participants mostly from the surrounding community, people that may know each other, colleagues, friends, family, neighbours, or total strangers. This setting will obviously bring different results than the diverse audience of a bigger art space or gallery with only a few things in common, who possibly will not be able to create connections and may not meet again after the event. According to Paula Serafini, art activism is ‘a tool for direct action and community building’ and there is no better place for it than the public space (Serafini, 2018, 142). John Crawford (Goldstein, 2020, 124) argues that while working with governments to create information literacy programmes ‘has proved to be a difficult issue, it is easier to make progress in a small state where access to decision makers is easier.’ As change is more possible to start with small, close knit communities, the solution may be to address this type of work towards smaller communities and audiences with common realities, in public spaces accessible by everyone.
A Composed Space.
A large percentage of audience members believe that art should be commenting on the current sociopolitical situation and it is a useful tool for social development. The interactive design and setting of Click to the Dark Side was a way for them to feel included in the work and the process, as they believe that the interactivity and openness of the project make the subject easily understood and accessible to them. Additionally, one of the audience members stated that it gives them the opportunity to communicate through discussion or through actions, as that type of work is not addressed towards passive viewers, but citizens that can create connections with each other as members of a social group.
Going back to Schavemaker’s curatorial models, we may detect in the Conference/Lecture and Exhibition Models certain characteristics that could possibly drive away audiences with no direct connection with art or with the subject and no formal training or knowledge of its history. The speakers invited for Conference/Lecture Model events are usually of specific background, taste, critical thinking and sometimes political ideology. This may be responsible for widening the gap between new art, institutions and audiences and may make it appear even more elitist than audiences already believe, as the organisers - even unintentionally - manage to invite a limited audience. Additionally, participation of the already reduced and specified audience is scaled down to being partially involved in the final decision of what is going to be published after the event, but not the creation of art, as the theoretical nature of the event offers no medium for understanding and no interactive or creative aspects between artwork and audience or between audience members. This model, built on traditional methods and ways of ‘explaining’ artistic means, offers no alternative approach to education, as it is based on the built knowledge and the display of an object most spectators have no direct connection with, as opposed to the experience and creative communication, leaving no space for turning the information into knowledge and understanding. On the other hand, the Exhibition Model attracts mainly professional artists because of the way displays are organised and framed, with the equivalent results.
The Community Model supports an informal atmosphere and may attract audiences with diverse backgrounds, as it doesn’t feel unwelcome and elitist. It approaches the audience not as singularities, but as a community invited to discuss a matter that concerns them or to solve a common problem through a combination of creative work and conversation. Additionally, the Festival model ‘bridges the gap between education and direct experience and invites participation’ (Schavemaker in Brown, 2014) with its temporal character and by giving the audience the opportunity to choose which events they will attend and for how long. One of the audience members suggests the Festival Model, focusing on a single theme or group of linked themes, as a way to bridge the gap between contemporary art and new audiences. They believe that new interactive art attracts diverse audiences indeed, as spectators want and need to communicate, but conservative institutions do not complement these modes of interaction. This became obvious a few days before the performance of Click to the Dark Side, as the organisation that was supporting the event abandoned the project, as - in their words - ‘it is too progressive and has nothing to do with music or the organisation’s principles’. The same person mentions the need to train spectators to interact, but act without underestimating them or treating them as separate from the creator and performers. As we all are members of the same society and ask to solve the same problems, we can use art to be trained in having healthy political lives and social relationships.
Victor Burgin argues that ‘space will no longer be viewed as either a subject or an object, but rather as a form of social reality, an assertion of a set of relations and forms’ (Burgin, 1986). Mixed-media compositions and installations are a way to combine old and new media and styles, while a combination of ideas deriving from the Community and Festival Models forming a single work, could lead to a simulation of social realities to be analysed, a Composed Space designed for creative interaction, communication of ideas between all participants, and social change.
Bibliography
Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London: Verso.
Berthoin Antal, A. and Friedman, V. (2017) ‘So What Do You Do? Experimenting with Space for Social Creativity’, in P. Meusburger et al. (eds.), Knowledge and Action: Knowledge and Space. Germany: Springer Open.
Bishop, C. (2012) Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso.
Brown, K. (ed.) (2014) Interactive Contemporary Art: Participation in Practice. London, New York: I.B. Tauris & Co.
Burgin, Victor. (1986) The End of Art Theory. London: Macmillan.
Goldstein, S. (ed.) (2020) Informed Societies: Why information literacy matters for citizenship, participation and democracy. London: Facet Publishing.
Grindon, G. (2010) Art & Activism. Available at: https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/article/art-activism-by-Gavin-grindon-february -2010 (Accessed: 27 January 2022).
Kyburz, S. and Schlegel, S. (2019) 8 Principles of Direct Democracy. Available at: https://www.cgdev.org/blog/8-principles-direct-democracy (Accessed: 6 January 2023).
Narberhaus, M. and Sheppard, A. (2015) Re-imagining Activism: A practical guide for the Great Transition. Germany: Smart CSOs Lab.
Papacharisi, Z. (2010) A private sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. UK: Polity Press.
Ran, F. (2009) A History of Installation Art and the Development of New Art Forms: Technology and the Hermeneutics of Time and Space in Modern and Postmodern Art from Cubism to Installation. NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Rogers, H. (2013) Sounding the gallery Video and the Rise of Art-Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Saunders, J. (2017) Rules and goals in game compositions. Available at: https://www.james-saunders.com/rules-and-goals-in-game-compositions/ (Accessed: 17 January 2023)
Serafini, P. (2018) Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism. London: Routledge.
Stallabrass, Julian (2004) Art Incorporated: The Story of Contemporary Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Turow, J. (2011) The daily you: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth. USA: Yale University Press.