REFERENCE: A Brush with Space

Gregor Schneider

Walking in Contrapposto (1968) by Bruce Nauman

Walking in Contrapposto (1968) by Bruce Nauman

PRACTICE: A Study of Corridors

Anyone who knows me, will know that I am fascinated by corridors, both from an architectural perspective and from a psychological perspective (which is why I often find my favourite examples of corridor shots from film).

Corridors act as a transitional bridge between spaces, their function is to take us from one destination to the next. Very rarely does is a corridor constructed to be a destination in itself. This is why the corridor has often proved to be such a dynamic setting in film. It preludes to a sense of expectation, of something beyond and unknown. I like exploring the idea of the corridor as being the illusion of infinity, of a route that extends so far, we can no longer see its end.

Various Screenshots taken from Film

REVIEW: [Blackout] WEYA @ Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

As part of the World Event Young Artists Festival in Nottingham, the majority of art venues and galleries were getting involved in this huge event, with exclusive performances and showcases from a wide variety of artists. Nottingham Contemporary hosted the sensory experience of Blackout, described as "a rare opportunity to explore the potential of our minds. With sensory limitations placed on the artists and audience, cutting edge musicians play anonymously and are never revealed in the pitch black...leaving the crowd to personally explore the sensory interplay between their imagination and the music."

This sounded like a fantastic method of heightening senses, and producing an unusual platform to experience music and visual art. As with any type of artwork of this kind, there is always a trepidation in not knowing what to expect. The programme stated that the artist playing would also remain unknown and therefore there was no way of knowing what to prepare for, what may lie beyond the darkness.

When it came to actually entering the darkened space, ushered in one by one, the intensity of the dark is quite intimidating. I don't think anyone nearly expects darkness that is so pitch black that you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. I realised that as soon as I entered the room and couldn't see, I was reaching out in front of me for someone, anyone. I felt comforted when I could feel my fingers brush across a complete stranger's back. There's an odd sense of reassurance. The expanse of black seemed so vast, and yet you feel trapped in a bubble, unable to reach anyone else, even though you can hear people around you. I think the most unnerving sensation throughout all of this is the sense of displacement. You cannot locate yourself in relation to anyone else or the space. You have no idea exactly how many people are sharing the space with you, and how close or far away they all are. It is rather disorientating. After a short period, as more and more viewers were entering, you could hear people sitting down, and I felt uneasy about what the appropriate behaviour was in this circumstance. I didn't know whether I was expected to sit, stand, walk, regardless that at this point I was much more comfortable standing still. I found that when I actually decided to sit down,  I felt a sense of relief. The ground seemed to give me a better sense of where I was, where I could sit and slowly move my arms around me. My biggest concern was whether people would bump or step into you unexpectedly, but surprisingly that didn't happen. Perhaps everyone was staying still.

REFERENCE: Traps and Manoeuvres

Often in my influences, film plays a big part in inspiring me in the use of space to create mood and express narrative. In the realm of film, anything is possible in terms of set design.

In this scene from Resident Evil (2002) not only does the space captivate me, but the way in which the characters move within the space. What really strikes me about this scene is how bright it is. Clean, light, nothing to hide. What often tends to happen in film, is that there is a common association between small spaces with tension and this often means dark, uncomfortable, and shadowed sets -making us fear what we can't see. In this instance, the corridor is anything but, it's stark. And it works in the film's favour. The starkness and sterile nature of the scene will make everything  that happens within it more pronounced. In most films, it's what we can't see, what we make for ourselves that is more terrifying. In a daring juxtaposition, it is challenging us to face what the scene is about to present with a candid reality. What is more terrifying is that they want us to see.

 

Resident Evil (2002) directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

One of the other great qualities about this scene is how it dictates the movement of the charcters trapped within it. As these lasers begin to cross through the length of the corridor, the characters have no choice but to evade as best they can to survive. It breaks the already small space into even smaller ones, adding to the claustrophobia and lack of escape that dooms the characters.

It just goes to show that there aren't any rules when using spaces to create a particular atmosphere, it is how you utilise what goes beyond just the space with imagination that make these scenes iconic.

REVIEW: [EXXOPOLIS] by Architects of Air @ Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham

EXXOPOLIS by Architects of Air
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham

In early June, the Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham hosted a lunimarium installation featuring latticework, and luminescent seams which create colours of light against iridescent hues to create an sensory immersive experience.

"A lunamarium is a sculpture people enter to be moved to a sense of wonder at the beauty of light and colour..."

Seeing EXXOPOLIS from the outside reminded me of a children's bouncing castle, the inflated plastic and children-friendly 'bounciness'. The true extraordinary spectrum of colour was concealed by an exterior of grey so it was hard to say what lay beyond. All visitors are asked to take their shoes off beforehand, and I wasn't surprised to see that most of the visitors were families with young children.

The images of EXXOPOLIS do not do the actual experience justice. The saturation of colour from space to space is so vivid and almost blinding in some cases, that it is only after your intital encounter with it that you become comfortable with the colours around you. The space is like a cave, divided by large coves that are led by a series of smaller tunnels and passageways that interlink every space together. Each space contains a colour, from green to red to blues. What surprised me was the intensity of the colour in each space, especially where one moves from one space to the next, the difference in hue is quite hard to negotiate in sight. Due to the nature of the material and the way EXXOPOLIS is made, it gives you a seamless impression, an enveloping series of colour and light that seems to invade from all sides. In some cases you need a few moments to adjust to the intensity before you are able to marvel and wonder at the otherworldiness of your environment.

"It is a paradox that that such a stimulating environment can simultaneously be so calming. Many people find the lunimaria a place for rest or meditation."

REFERENCE: Confinement in Film

Confinement, enclosure and claustrophobia are all extremely common forms of fear and paranoia that most people can unanimously relate to in some way. The use of confined spaces in film is possibly the most frequently utilised method of creating fear, tension and anxiety. It is because many of us can relate to this predicament that they have such an effect on us, it starts very early on in childhood. Our exploration of spaces and the world only leads to more, we are unsure where these spaces and pathways take us. At the basis of all these emotions is our sense of curiosity and fear of the unknown and surprise. These all work together to emphasise the most basic of spatial phobias.

Alice in Wonderland (1999) directed by Nick Willing

Alice in Wonderland directed by Jan Svankmajor

Kill Bill Volume. 2 (2004) directed by Quentin Tarantino

REVIEW: [Yayoi Kusama Retrospective] @ Tate Modern, London

Tate Modern recently revealed its new retrospective for the renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

"Her art has an almost hallucinatory intensity that reflects her unique vision of the world, whether through a teeming accumulation of detail or the dense patterns of polka dots that have become her signature. The incessant quality of this gesture is both obsessive and meditative.

In the late 1990s, Kusama returned to making room size installations. In her installations, this image of bourgeois stasis is turned into something surreal and uncanny. All the room and furnishing covered with sticker spots which glow. The polka dot can be the visual shorthand signifying her hallucinatory visions. Covering in a room in psychedelic polka dots might be her attempt to visualise and restage the experience of her own hallucinatory episodes, during which she senses the physical world overtaken by endlessly repeated forms. Her representation of her inner world results in an installation that is fantastical and potentially unsettling. Spots are more readily experienced as interruptions of our own field of vision rather than a surface motif.

I'm Here But Nothing (2000) by Yayoi Kusama

I'm Here But Nothing (2000) by Yayoi Kusama

Her piece 'Infinity Mirror Room' is a depiction of infinite space. Reflecting surfaces has become a recurring element in her work. Large scale environments that viewers can walk into and explore. She proposes an experience for the infinite, inviting the viewer to suspend his or her sense of self -accompanying Kusama on her ongoing journey of self-obliteration." -Tate Modern

REFERENCE: Immersing Body & Mind

The TV documentary 'What makes a masterpiece?' (2012) courtesy of Channel 4, features James Turrell's immersive installations as a play between science and art, powering between experience and aesthetics.

 

"His work is often described as explorations in light and space. The artist calls his work 'adventures in perception' and I can't help thinking this is a take on the brave new world of neuro-aesthetics, which studies the impact of art on the brain. By flooding the senses with otherworldly flushes of light, Turrell is creating something of a new reality, born of a fusion of the two disciplines of art and science. In Turrell's case, beauty isn't so much in the eye of the beholder but the brain." -Matthew Cain

With new technology and developing art practices that now frequently combine the two, it is becoming difficult in defining what exactly affects us when we encounter art. Whether there is some key element that engages the viewer's attention, or whether it is the joy of surprise and the new. James Turrell's installations don't only overload the senses with his extreme colour and light, but they seem to transport the viewer to a psychological state, an alternate reality of escape.

REVIEW: [Black Mirror] directed by Charlie Brooker

I watched the brilliant, dark and unsettling Black Mirror, which has been constantly surprising me with how on point it's commentary is. A dystopian series of small stories, wrapped in a very familiar universe to our own, Black Mirror gives us a disturbing glimpse into the not so far future of technology and it's impact on our lives. I've always been quite cynical about how quickly technology is developing and how dependent and intertwined it has become with everyday life. I'm not going to lie, it worries me. And Charlie Brooker does a wonderful job of fulfilling my fears in this drama series.

In an interview I watched online, Charlie Brooker states he decided to call the series Black Mirror because when our digital devices are switched off, they literally look like a black mirror staring back at us. And there's something twisted, mysterious and great about that.e

Episode two "15 million merits" focused on our obsession with entertainment shows and insistent technological distractions. It is set in an alternate future where everyone lives in a tiny cell comprised of a room-size virtual screen in which every activity takes place through the currency of virtual merits. From a virtual cockerel wake-up call in the morning, to picking out food from a virtual vending machine on a screen, all activities revolve around this technological medium.

My interest is in the idea of living within a video itself...which actually isn't a new idea really at all. Games such as Second Life and Sims have been doing this for ages. They offer you the option to cast yourself in an alternate life and reality. Worrying when it leads some to spend more time on their "virtual" lives than their real ones. With all these recent new technologies such as the Wii and the X-box where you can effectively control your own virtual world with simple movement, it leaves little other activity to be desired or necessary. Instead of doing the real activity itself (such as sport) people opt to do it virtually instead. We become completely immersed in a world which essentially doesn't even exist. And the problem is that some people actually prefer it.