Exploring how sensory experience is portrayed through the artwork of artists Bill Viola, Pipilotti Rist and Bruce Nauman to further discover how engagement can be formed between the audience and Contemporary Art.

Title page

Course info

Title of essay

Table of contents

Introduction…page 3

Chapter 1 – Sensory Medium…page 5

Chapter 2 – Conceptual Engagement…page

Chapter 3 – Modern Technology and Contemporary Art…page

Conclusion…page

Introduction

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how contemporary art engages with the audience through sensory experience, focusing on particular artists that create immersive environments and use certain mediums to affect the senses. I want to discover how a more effective experience can be stimulated through different art forms and therefore find out how art can further engage with the audience.

Artists such as Francis Bacon work with sensation to express personal and dramatic themes; his work ‘emanates a powerfully corporeal sensation, at the limits of the bestial.’ (Ficacci, 2006, p37) but I wish to focus on how different sensory experiences are created using immersive and installation art that affect the different senses, to discover a sensory affect created by each of my chosen artists.

In the following chapters, I will analyse and compare how the selection of artists' work with sensation and stimulation to provoke the audiences’ senses, how concepts are used to engage with the audience and how modern technology has advanced the effects of sensation in art and engagement with the audience. My selection of artists is: Bruce Nauman, Pipilotti Rist, Bill Viola. These are artists work with different mediums to create immersive and engaging artwork that provoke the senses; I shall also look at how other art examples compare with their practice.

Firstly, Bruce Nauman; Nauman is phenomenally a mixed-media artist but is most famously known for his work with light installations. Nauman’s art touches on minimalism exploring non-traditional mediums to discover how the use of fibre glass, light and sculpture can affect the audience with simplistic yet alluring pieces. The work stimulates the audience by affecting the body with the use of sound and space, working physically with light, language and psychologically with his concepts; he ‘posed fundamental questions about what it means to be human.’ (Blume, 2010, p7).

The artist Pipilotti Rist engages with the audience in a different way; also using film, the films interact with the space around the work to construct atmospheres for the audience to experience. The artist uses the space to draw the audience into her work with the use of coloured panels, dark space, projection and lighting to create ‘…expansive, immersive environments.’  (Bedford, 2011, p1) Rist makes work that can be experienced and watched, films that depict characters that fiercely desire to experience all sensations, inviting the audience to be spectators to the fantasies but also be immersed in her created worlds.

Bill Viola is another artist that uses sensation but this is done through the notion of shared experiences, concepts that explore religion, tragedy, spiritualism and the general trials of life; themes that are faced universally by all humans. This artist uses film to look at the reactions of the audience, they become spectators to his work but also are drawn in because the works don’t merely depict birth they show the sensations and what it’s like to experience birth, ‘archaic mode of visual engagement.’ (Townsend, C, 2004, p13)

Sensory Medium

In this chapter, I shall explore how sensory experiences are created with these artists’ work by looking at their mediums and how they use the space with their practice, overall exploring how Contemporary Art affects the senses of the spectators to fuel audience engagement.

Artists’ Sensory Effect

(insert THEORY OF SENSATION – brief)

For the artist Bruce Nauman, light as a medium is a very important part for creating a sensory experience for the audience. The piece The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) combines language with light to formulate reactions, creating almost “beer sign” pieces that depict important underlining issues but through a humorous colourful display. Nauman’s sensation effect is created by producing artworks that create a ‘sensory overload from the acidic colours’ (Ketnwer, 2006, p15) to overwhelm the viewers, working with ‘imperative directness’ (Ketnwer, 2006, p30) to engage with the audience. The ambitious piece One hundred live and die ‘dominates your visual field’ (Ketnwer, 2006, p30) using powerful illuminations with the flashing words that portray human experiences, overall drawing focus to the individual and affecting the senses by distorting the vision.

The effects of sensation are emphasised further through with the use of dimensions and space in Nauman’s larger installations. This is optimised in the piece Corridor with Mirror and White lights, one of the pieces that even the artist commented he could never stay in, the harshness of light made it difficult to remain within for a long period of time.  The light from the neon sculptures ‘aggressively penetrates the environment’ (p15 Ketnwer II, Joseph D; 2006) as well the space in which it is contained becoming a sensory contributor. In this piece the sensory experience for the audience is heightened with the use of mirrors, surveillance cameras and the narrow entrance which the audience is tempted to squeeze through. The space becomes an important factor in Nauman’s sensory effects by dominating and capturing the audience, Nauman remarked ‘I wanted to make kind of play experiences unavailable just by the preciseness of the space,’ (Kraynak, 2003, p30). This contradicts the piece Pour Your Body Out (2008) by Pipilotti Rist, which engages with the audience by allowing them to experiencing the space freely to create a sensory experience. The piece itself is so vast with the use of gigantic moving images, ‘twenty-five feet in height, to envelope three expansive walls…’ (Bedford, 2011, p8), the artist wanted to provoke elements of play and for ‘the space to be loose and unprescribed,’ (Bedford, (2011), p8) However, although this artist works with play in her pieces it also relates to Nauman’s sensory effect as the space still demands the audience’s attention, it traps them in to ‘confiscate the viewer’s total attention’ (Bedford, 2011, p7).  This draws focus to the space for creating sensory experience; Pipilotti Rist’s ambitious exhibition, The Tender Room (2011), epitomises the relationship between the audience and the space, creating ‘installations that became increasingly immersive,’ (Avery, 2009; p118), relating to Nauman’s sensory effects of controlling the audience.  Nevertheless Rist’s not only wants to captures the spectator completely but also sees them as a contributor, to create a connection and a ‘self-determined encounter for the viewer’ (Bedford, 2011, p8) with the artwork.  Nauman’s artwork almost becomes a sensory experiment while Rist’s is more like a sensory experience for the audience; Rist spoke in an interview, ‘I like to create environments where visitors are the most important element.’ (Bedford, 2011, p41)

Focusing on the use of space as a sensory element, the piece Tiny Deaths (1993) by Bill Viola works with the space to affect the senses of the audience, engaging with the viewers with another example of projected imagery but also working with the effects of light and dark to create atmospheres and sensation that holds the audience in the work. The space is moulded into an environment to create a sensory experience with the use of projections to captures the spectators, ‘the images become part of the architecture; they exist in space and as space.’ (Townsend, C; 2004; p52) Similarly, another example by Rist, the piece Homo sapiens sapiens, captures the attention of the audience through visual stimulation but also drawing them in to look at the images above and be lost in the continuous imagery. Four images were projected onto the ceiling so that the audience had to lie down and look above to see. The artist commented in interview, ‘you can’t see where the video image begins or end’ (Bickers, 2011, p1), this focuses on how these artists both create their sensory effect using immersive medium that transforms the gallery spaces. (MORE VIOLA)

In relation to these artists’ practice, the piece Life fog frog…Fog frog (2008) by Ernesto Neto also creates a sensory affect with the audience with the use of physical space, communicating with the viewers by inviting them into a ‘spatial and sensory labyrinth,’ (Dillon, 2008, p111) it too is transforming a space into an immersive environment. In a sense Neto’s work is diverse with his engagement with the audience as the artist works to create physical engagement which is shown in the piece Humanóides [Humanoids] (2001), a piece that uses fabric that can literally be worn by the audience, textures that stimulate reactions, ‘transmitting a sensation of comfort and cosiness’ (http://www.itaucultural.org.) to immerse them in the texture and forms of his piece. However, in accordance with that particular sensory involvement, the piece Stadtlounge by Rist works with the use of sensory texture to engage with the audience, in which the artist lavished every surface and surrounding objects in a space with red fabric to give the audience the feeling of ‘walking on the red carpet’ (Bickers, 2011, p2). It seems the most engaging feature was the texture of the piece, the audience were ‘welcomed by the soft material, making it a collective playground’ (Bickers, 2011, p3). The piece appears more effective in creating sensory engagement than Neto’s  Humanóides [Humanoids] (2001) because Rist’s sensory effect creates engagement with the viewers on different levels. Despite Neto’s use of lighting, the visual stimulation worked with the textures of the piece, the vibrant red of Stadlounge seemed to stimulate the audience more and draw them to Rist’s work, even winning the public’s prize in a competition in 2005, the artist commented  ‘ the colour in all of us is red.’ (Bickers, 2011, p3).

Stimulation through the senses

This further explores the idea of stimulation from the senses. Stimulation changes mental state and even creates disturbance in the mind, ‘Images stimulate cognitive reflection…’ (Russo; 2010; p49). I propose to explore how these artists can stimulate the audience with interactive installations and how sound and moving image can create stimulation in the viewers in Contemporary Art.

The piece Get out of my mind, Get out of this room (fig) by Bruce Nauman works with sound to stimulate association and learnt cognitive behaviour within the audience; The association with the words and with sound conjures images in the mind and the pitch and tone create a sense of urgency with the audience, affecting them both psychologically because of the words spoken as a command but also an uneasy sense that the spectators are in a forbidden place. (QUOTE) Nauman’s stimulation is formed similarly to the sensation he portrays with his work, through the use of control with the audience and their connection with the space, it adheres to the ‘idea of Duchamp’s readymade to the body – and mind – of the artist and, beyond that, to any space that he – and we – actually or notionally occupy.’  (Bickers, 2006, p20)

Conversely, the series The Passions by Bill Viola stimulates reactions but in a different way by using dramatic sights to produce ‘sensory effects can overwhelm viewers so as to induce a state of fear and trembling – while remaining uplifting.’ (Townsend, 2004, p25). The stimulus created from these works is exemplified by the effects used in the films; from the series, in the piece ‘Dolorosa’ emotions are depicted in slow motion so that every sensory portrayal of grief can be witnessed in clarity and for a prolonging amount of time, willing the viewer to dwell on every aspect of the characters’ experiences. Viola’s sensory effect is created through connecting with the humanity within us using powerful visual stimulation to engage with the audience and make them experience changes within themselves, ‘The realism of the emotions we witness in the videos requires us to conceive of some disturbing source of their pain.’ (Townsend, C; 2004; p34). Comparable to this, the piece I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1988) explores a tension between sensations, working to stimulate reactions through the ‘movement, content, colour…the organic and the technical’ (Bedford, 2011, p42) inviting the audience to become a part of the piece, rather than through the portrayal of emotion but through the fluidity of moving images, ‘people never say they have “seen” a Pipilotti Rist work, they always say they have “experienced” it.’ (Bickers, 2011; p3).

Hence forth, the points above illustrate how my chosen artists have used sensation, focusing on the senses, to heightened audience engagement. Focusing on particular artworks, it seems that the use of both experimenting with controlling the audience as well as creating an experience for the viewers is combined to produce a strong connection with the viewers. In comparison to other art, the pieces by my chosen artist still engage strongly with the audience on different levels of sensation.* in particular the way that the invisible is made visible – none of the blatant portrayal of sensation but deep movement and effect

Relating back to my original exploration, the artists in question have their own sensory effect that engages with the audience but also which works in comparison with each other, formulating stimulation and an overall sensory engagement yet also working with connections through concepts. (QUOTE?) This leads me to my next point, exploring how the conceptual side of these artists’ work can further the experience of sensation between the audience and Contemporary art.

Conceptual Engagement

Conceptual connection through Contemporary Art is often created through a combination of the above components mentioned: the senses being affected, the stimulation from the work and the environment. I propose to explore how through conceptual engagement a sensory experience is created within the work of my chosen artists with some comparison with other art forms to gain greater understanding of conceptual engagement.

When considering conceptual themes in Contemporary Art, ‘Deleuze – Francis Bacon’ explores the levels of sensation and figuration, Bacon’s works tries to ‘eliminate the “sensational”…the primary figuration’ (p27) meaning that the figurative meaning behind a piece, if removed, would leave only the expression or emotion, the particular moment portrayed. An example is Bacon’s screaming Pope, Bacon only wants to portray the scream itself not the horror of the scene, ‘as soon as there is horror, a story is reintroduced, and the scream in botched.’ (p28) Thus suggesting that the story is unimportant and even hinders sensation as the character in Bacon’s piece ‘screams before the invisible…the horror is multiplied because it is inferred from the scream, and not the reverse.’ (28)

I am going to explore this theory, using my chosen artists whose work is centred on the moving images and distinctive structures, working with conceptual engagement created around the ideal of being human and the restrictions and expansions that afflict us.

Human Experience and Narrative

Firstly the piece by Nauman, Double Cage Piece works to further explore the concept previously mentioned, to experiment with the audience, ‘to test out our human condition under the harshest physical and psychological conditions.’ (Blume, 2010, p75) The construction of dimensions, tunnels, projections and many more obstacles works physically to affect the senses of the audience, forcing them to explore their own reactions, ‘forces self-awareness’ (Blume, 2010, p75) and affecting them on a personal level. A piece by Viola Slowly Turning Narrative (1992) also works with conceptual engagement of human experience, making the audience reflect on themselves ‘our own mortality which defines the nature of human beings.’ (Townsend, 2004, p47). The piece is a combination of two projections using moving image and sound to create the sensory experience, working through a timeline of human experiences such as a wedding, car crash, children playing etc. This too engages with the audience similar to Nauman’s piece as it makes the audience identity with their own lives through the art work as well as using objects to stimulate sensation both physically and mentally, in particularly with Viola’s piece, as it also includes a mirror on the other side of the screen as it turns, ‘obliging them to experience all those situations as parts of their own lives,’ (Townsend, 2004, p48) to reflect on events and concepts that are experienced universally.

A sense of shared experiences can also be portrayed through the everyday events of one’s life, conceptually making the audience identify with their own experiences when looking at the work; Nauman’s piece Eleven Colour Photographs works to create connection between the art and the audience through a photographic series of everyday things designed to create identification through normalised activities depicted but which seem glorified and made important. ‘…expressions are literalised, thus distorting or refracting language’s normative function as a simple means of communicating ideas.’ (P10 Kraynak, J (2003) MORE

In a comparable sense, Sip my Ocean by Rist works to create shared experiences but by engulfing the viewers and aiming to create a ‘blissed-out experience’ (Bickers, 2011, p3), opening the audience up to her fantasy worlds, with the use of sensory engagement through moving images that portray the exploration of the senses ‘video projected as two mirrored reflections on adjoining walls…view of an idyllic underwater paradise, with a flowing sequence of dreamlike images’, (http://www.guggenheim.org) the pieces seem as though they could almost take people aside from themselves and make them identify with their own humanity and become one. The artist explained her reasoning for creating the environments, it creates a sense of union, ‘when you come together in imaginary rooms you become a common body.’(Bickers, 2011, p2) This can also be achieved by the audience joining together within a space, working with the conceptual themes and fuelling the ideal of being performers; Rist commented on her exhibition of The Tender Room, ‘people can meet, interact…the meaning of this room is the story of what people do there,’ (Bedford, 2011, p41) the audience almost creating their own narrative within a space.

Diverse to the work of points outlined by Bacon regarding the figurative, in the piece Pepperminta by Rist, the engagement between a character and a viewer can advance the effects of sensation by creating a shared connection that invites the audience into the work as a performer; the piece Pepperminta optimises the ideal of a narrative within sensory art, the character that encourages the pursuit of sensation ‘identifies sensual possibilities everywhere’ (Bedford, 2011, p8) and through the use of sensation, particularly colour, Rist works with the environment and with moving projections to enable her to ‘transform lives.’ (Bedford, 2011, p11) The artist creates an environment as the protagonist Pepperminta sees it, a place ‘transformed by colour that becomes a stage for the viewer’s participation in the narrative fantasy that structures the work.’ (Bedford, 2011, p11) In this sense the audience engagement is fuelled by the narrative as well as the features of installation created by the theme, but although the piece is ‘structured around the narrative, it is most powerfully understood as a series of set pieces that demonstrate with a hybolic tenderness…a more humane, interconnected, ethical society might be built’ (Bedford, 2011, p8) one the audience can fantasise about and become immersed in the ideal.   BILL VIOLA – Lack of narrative

Involvement (?)

Exploring involvement in the conceptual engagement – physically being affected and immersed (?)

Conceptually, the artist Bill Viola was even influenced by Nauman, this exploration of how ‘a viewer can be confronted with an image which can unsettle basic assumptions of one’s body occupying the space’ (Sellars, Hyde, Ross, 1997, p23) – review this, in particular his Corridor Installation (Nick Wilder Installation) 1970 which encourages participation as well as physically affecting the audience. An example of Viola’s work following this theme is (WATER PIECE?)

Similarly, Nauman’s piece South American Triangle (1981) works with materials to express particular themes, in this instance ‘directly suggesting torture.’ (Bickers, 2006, p20) The metal and wire construction gives the impression of a distorted interrogation scene with a chair suspended upside down above the head of the viewer this disturbingly ‘acts as a body surrogate’ but also ‘implicating the viewer’ (Bickers, 2006, p20) and involving them both physically as they can move freely around and under the space as well as conceptually by individually partaking in the “scene.” The simplicity of the piece itself and the bareness of the structure seems more affective when engaging with the audience as it stimulates contemplation and the greater need to understand the piece than if the materials and concepts are presented to us, Art Monthly reviewed this piece when exhibited at Whitechapel as ‘more telling than the obvious suspended installations…’  (Bickers, 2006, p20). Thus proving that sometimes less is more.

for his work with ‘phenomenological function of video’s real-time mirroring capacity’

Influenced by Bruce Nauman – ‘exhibited a deep understanding of the …implied the possibility of spaces that exist only within the framework of a sculptural proposition.’

Although not necessarily focusing on narrative, conceptually, the piece (blah) by Neto explores how identification can be made between the work and the audience by formulating comparisons between one’s own body and the art. The shapes and dimensions of the work express organic themes and human bodily forms, ‘a representation of the body’s landscape from within’ (http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/neto.html) and the audience can identify with the concepts being portrayed by physical involvement to create ‘sensuality and physical union.’ http://www.itaucultural.org. ) However, it seems that these themes need to be explained by the artist rather than the audience being able to engage with the concepts freely, in the book ‘Psycho Building’ the artist has been quoted saying that the above piece supposedly has ‘”subjective and implied limbs” as the artist says’ (Dillon, 2008, p111) although this may not be easily translated to the audience through the structure itself.

Modern Technology in Contemporary Art

In this chapter I am focusing on how modern technology plays a role in the practice of my chosen artists and how this further creates sensation and engagement in art. Also exploring how technology’s role in Contemporary has furthered sensory engagement with the audience.

When looking at the ‘Logic of Sensation’ it mainly refers to the mediums in art before technological advancement, focusing on artwork that worked fiercely to create sensation through “limited” mediums in reference to what is available today, but it also explores ‘elasticity in sensation’ (29), suggesting that sensation is at its most powerful when it can cause mental stimulation and affect all the senses yet other physically portraying one e.g. the visual engagement through painting. The advancement in modern technology and its involvement in our lives leaving people wanting more than that, more “thrills” and sensations to be felt physically. I propose to explore this further and aim to discover how and if modern technology has advanced sensation in art using the examples of my chosen artists and other examples of artwork to compare them to fully illustrate my points.

Firstly, the exploration of modern technology in art has worked to fuel the use of artificially formed sensation, making it a key component that is used in contemporary art to produce stimulation using modern technology, exploring how modern mediums are used to engage with the audience. An example of such works would be Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project, shown in London, Tate Modern 2003-4 (fig) a clear exploration of what modern technology can do to stimulation reactions from the audience, to create an artificial environment and let the audience experience the piece freely. (QUOTE from installation art)

RIST > ‘Nichts (Nothing) – smoke bubble machine. A comparison piece by one of my chosen artists would be a piece by Pipilotti Rist, in the immersive piece ‘Pour Your Body Out’(?) looking at how the use of modern technology, in this case the use of giant projections, works to fuel the sensory involvement with art and the audience, similarly to how Eliasson’s work captures the attention of the viewers and they become performers in the work. (ALSO ART PAINT PIECE!!!!!!) – see yourself sensing

The work by Collishaw explores the use of different media, the combination of different types of filming equipment that he uses is alike the works of Bill Viola, the combining of out-dated equipment with newer technology which has the ability to create a greater immersive effect. (example – video pieces) The artist even expressed his own reasoning for using different mediums, for, (unlike Rist’s opinion of film medium being restrictive, for our susceptibility to be immersed in film is waning due to mass availability of technology) he believes that technology can always cause affect as it works towards the same purpose of stimulating the viewers,

Use of Neon – Bruce Nauman – sculptural pieces. Minimalist pieces using the modern technology.   

  VIOLA> Aesthetically, the piece was a combination of medieval technology in reference to the location and late twentieth century technology in reference to the use of video and installation, this was seen as a downfall by some critics, seen as a “theological challenge” as not only was it censored somewhat but the combination of the two features took place in a ‘sacred space of the building, while never yielding its own authentic voice.’ (Townsend, C; 2004; p183).

In an interview, the medium of the artist’s practice was explored: Rist explained how the restrictions of the 2D, as a vivid experience, are no longer a barrier because of the increasing use of technology.  How 3D cinema immerses people, digital effects capture the imagination and we almost become a part of the film we are watching, technology’s way of connecting with us more; artificial sensation but producing a real stimulus(?) Thus this is how contemporary art has progressed, working with our senses more than ever, exploring new ways to stimulate reactions and how art can engage with the audience. p41

RIST – ‘Open my Glade’ expresses frustration at the limits of the camera.*semi quoted*

‘Sip my Ocean’

(insert Rist/more Viola/ Nauman)

See yourself sensing.

RIST > Without the use of modern technology the art would be stationary photography and the immersive effects of the floating figures and moving scenes would be unable to have such a hold on the audience. (Art Monthly – talks about rist’s use of technology to achieve her aims in art).