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| Olafur Eliasson: Are You Experienced? |
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by Kim Nicolini - 11 Jan., 2008
Olafur Eliasson: Are You Experienced?by Kim Nicolini From the Model Room I've been fascinated with the art of Olafur Eliasson for a long time and am particularly interested in the way he interfaces natural phenomenon with technology and urban landscapes. I've never been lucky enough see any of Eliasson's installations in person, so when I discovered that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is having a retrospective of his work, I knew I couldn't miss it. I read a really great interview with Eliasson in the Doug Aitken book Broken Screen on the flight from Tucson to San Francisco. The article was very inspiring and one of the most interesting interviews in the book. What struck me is how brilliant Eliasson is, yet how his brilliance is couched in humility. It would seem from hearing him talk that he just gets "lucky" when making things and that happenstance and chance are at play in his work. After seeing his exhibit, I would have to say that it is exactly opposite. Not only is Eliasson an artist, but after experiencing his work, I'd have to say he's also a scientist, a physicist, a metaphysicist, a mathematician, an engineer, and a visionary, among other things. There is no possible way to capture the experience and sensation of Eliasson's work in a photograph. He transforms environments in real living space, so that transformation cannot be replicated in a two dimensional photograph. Besides the fact that his work operates in real architectural and geographic space, the magic of Eliasson's work is in how it changes the actual physical chemistry and electric field of the viewer. When I say "the sensation" of his work, I mean it literally manipulates the viewer's senses. All of his installations at the SFMOMA inspire a bodily effect, a loss of equilibrium and grounding, a physical disintegration, and blurring between art and body. The body actually feels like it is absorbing the art, and the art seems to infiltrate the body. Our feet disappear. Our heads turn to psychedelic light fractals. What is liquid, solid, metal, glass, body and reflection is all mixed up until what we have is a visceral and pure Experience of the art. To quote Jimi Hendrix, "Are you experienced? And have you ever been experienced?" Well, I wasn't quite sure what that meant before, but I know now that I've experienced the Eliasson. Some of my personal favorites in the exhibit included Sunset kaleidoscope (2005), 360 degree room for all colours (2002) and Notion motion (2005), but all the installations are phenomenal. In Sunset kaleidoscope I inserted my arm in a mirror tube and looked out a window at the end of the tube overlooking the San Francisco skyline. When I looked inside, I discovered a kaleidoscopic explosion of my own arms intersecting with reflections of the museum, the light from outside, fragments of my face and the cityscape. I actually felt my feet disappear entirely, and it was like I was levitating there in that museum space. Even though there was a line of people waiting their turn at the exhibit, the pressure of their presence was non-existent because my body no longer existed. I was part of the light and the art. The world of human lines and eyes staring at my back weren't part of the world inside that incredible tube of light, mirrors, and magic. I pulled my arm out and was immediately zapped into the present concrete world again. My immediate impulse was that I wanted to stick my arm back in the tube again. One-way colour tunnel (2007) Instead I walked across the One-way colour tunnel (2007). Or rather, I walked back and forth and back and forth across the One-way colour tunnel. I marveled at the change of light, the sensation of brilliant color turning to opaque black behind me, almost as though I were leaving a wake of black in my path. I was fascinated by all the little pieces of wire so carefully twisted into spirals and holding the piece together. Again my body was transported to an entirely different dimension. Even though I knew I was walking on the bridge in the SFMOMA, a bridge I have crossed many times, I also knew that it wasn't the bridge anymore. It was something else. Eliasson had taken this fixed architectural form and transformed it into its own newly created dimension. Notion motion (2005) was like walking into a dream or a movie of a dream. Better yet, it was like becoming one with the mechanics of a dream. I walked across squeaky wooden floorboards, and the pressure of my feet on the boards affected change in patterns on a huge expanse of water reflected on the screen. The mechanics of the installation were evident – the click of the projector, intentionally loose boards underfoot, the graininess of the film on screen. The experience was completely surreal, like a dream where someone pulls the curtain back and you can see what is making the dream happen yet you still know you're in a dream. So while some of Eliasson's installations affect a sense of losing your body, in Notion motion you are very present and aware of occupying your body and how it interacts with the installation. Your body seems to be operating in a dreamscape, yet it is also a mechanical element affecting the dream itself. Pretty neat stuff.
Notion Motion (2005) 360 degree room for all colours (2002) is beyond description. It is a transcendental experience of space and color distilled to pure experience. I entered the simple white cylinder with colors projected on its interior, and my entire being was enveloped by its energy. I stood staring at one completely blank section of the cylinder. As the colors built and penetrated the space, I started to feel a change in my body. Soon my head began to tingle. My entire being became absorbed with color. The color washed over me, saturated my entire body and all my senses until I disintegrated into it. Each color came in a wave and changed the sensation, but the sensation was always that of utter and pure experience, color saturation and bodily disintegration. The green was particularly powerful and actually made me break out in a cold sweat. There is a sensation called "free falling" associated with the effects of hallucinogens. This was free falling into color. The experience was so sublime that it pains me to know I will never experience it again. 60 degree room for all colours (2002) All of the Eliasson installations have similar bodily effects. There is nothing accidental in the way these installations are put together. Each one has a very intentional effect on the viewer's experience of the art and the relation of the body to the space. Eliasson's scientific grounding was evidenced in his piece Multiple grotto (2004), a giant walk-in construction made of mirrors and kaleidoscopes. Each kaleidoscope replicates an actual crystalline pattern found in nature. When one person stands outside the structure, another can stand inside and see the face and body of the other reduced to a unique and precise pattern found in nature. Not only does your body and reflection become part of the art and the structure itself, but because it takes multiple viewers to experience the work, the people participating in the installation create their own distinct and unique pattern within the structure. Multiple Grotto (2004) All the amazing light installations aside, one of my ultimate favorite parts of the exhibit was the model room, a space in which hundreds of Eliasson's models and constructions were on exhibit – amazing spherical and spiral shapes made of wire, wood, paper, styrofoam, and foil. I was mesmerized by their beauty and complexity and also their pure simple form. I studied each and every one and the intricacies of pattern and the shadow play they made on the walls, ceiling and shelving. Needless to say, I have grand plans to create about a million cool forms out of foil, wire, cardboard and egg cartons! I can say that while I'm sad that I only got to see this exhibit once, I am grateful that I did get this opportunity. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I will add it to my list of amazing things I've been lucky enough to experience. And I do feel experienced. Model Room Kim Nicolini is an artist, poet and cultural critic. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her partner, daughter, and a menagerie of beasts. She works a day job to support her art and culture habits. Her work has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Bullhorn, Counterpunch and Berkeley Poetry Review. She can be reached at:
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