A transitory art form pushes boundaries
by Eric==
Many of the installations within Installation Art in the New Millennium illuminated the idea that many installation artists are increasingly mobile and reactive to the technological progressions of a global society. In the spirit of transience, this vagabond response seems the logical step in that installation art defies definition because it avoids stagnation and pushes to evolve at a speed consistent with society and its technology. But there is something troubling and problematic with this shift away from traditional space in that technology is increasingly involved and thus required in many installations. The installations tend to feel ‘dependent’ upon the technology to entice the ‘participatory audience’ into playing their critical part in the functioning of the installation. Whereas some installations require only minimal power for viewers to experience them, such as David Bunn’s “I feel better now, I feel the same,” where technology is not the focus or main apparatus that drives the experience—although the installation addresses the issue of trading-in old, organic ways of cataloguing information for digital storage methods— other installations are wholly dependent on technology to create the entire experience (136). I begin to feel as if this shift towards utilizing so much technology is impeding us artists from discovering relationships with specific localities, as well as using materials that are more natural in sustainable ways. Technology becomes so obsolete in little time, so much that we need address these speeds towards wastefulness. However, the decay of thrown out items can make quite a nice visual story as I found out recently while venturing through the city.
I began driving across the old 11th St. steel bridge towards the industrial tide flats in Tacoma on Sunday. I came across an early 20th century warehouse that is severely dilapidated. In the front of the building there is huge area dusted with thrown out archaic technologies being reclaimed by Nature’s processes. Blackberry bushes coil around huge cylindrical boat engines falling to rust, and an early 50’s truck holds random decaying equipment--just a confusing yet spectacular array of junk everywhere over a good 50 yard by 50-yard lot. As I walk through the area, it seems that someone has made an unintended art installation over time unknown. It was fully interactive, full of sensory gratification. I even touched some old control panels, pushing buttons with no response, The freeway noise was the backdrop and petroleum semi-trucks were the only traffic through this area. Bizarre, beautiful, disturbing…I guess what sets this site apart from an actual installation is that there is no intention or control in this art project, where randomness appears as the master designer. But who designed it? Was any of this thought out aside from utility and practicality for access? I began to think about myself as the audience here and asked: who or what can be granted the title of artist? Is humanness a prerequisite? Earth, in all her magnificent diversity of creation, seems like the master installation artist as she invites her audience to investigate and explore her barrage of sites and wonders. From waterfalls to anthills, we borrow everything that she has afforded us. As humans in the process of art installation, we recreate in smaller scales to represent the massiveness of life— the large ideas and previously unfathomable possibilities of it all.
