Page 54 - Studio International - March 1970

New York The sense of isolation is perhaps even more the aesthetic experience. By cutting drastically
stunning in Larry Bell's space, which for most into the wholeness of human experience and
isolating one facet, they contribute to the
commentary viewers was more like a dark tunnel than a general problem of addiction, instability arid
room. Although there were said to be panels
of vacuum-coated glass in the room, I found passiveness. All the clichés about alienated
They say that subjects in sensory deprivation only a long wall along which I groped my way man seem to have been lodged in the minds
experiments occasionally become addicted to to the end and back, knowing only the half- of those we now call artists. The freedom of
deprivation. Lying in a tank of warm water, pleasant trepidation that spelunkers must action suggested as the perfect human order
gently rocked, it is quite possible to become know. This temporary disorientation for by Claude Bernard is forcibly reduced in
indifferent to the chaos of existence, and, people who are visually active (or I should these and countless other experiments we
after a long period, become a thrall to the say, more visually active, since vision is in- have had the mild pleasure of experiencing
repetitive hallucinations such experience disputably the queen of the senses) has a in the name of art.
induces. mildly novel physiological effect. If one had The complexity of the Pulsa group's offering
It remains to be seen how far such addiction never been immersed; were never in a dark puts it into another category. Years ago Billy
will go in the literally dizzying events New tunnel; never underwater; or even, never in a Kluver used to ground his argument for art
York has seen this season. The latest is the funhouse, it would be an important experi- married to technology on the appealing
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART'S 'Spaces' exhibition ence. example of Chinese fireworks. They were
in which five individual artists and one Asher's room was white while Bell's was technological, ephemeral and artistic, and
artists' collaborative have set up sensory black, and both had almost—but not quite— gave visual pleasure. The Pulsa group's gar-
experiments that could serve the scientific eliminated sensory stimuli. Both produced an den arrangement, with blinking lights, agree-
community as well as the artistic. In two effect which is often considered a part of the able whooshing sounds, and oases of artificial
`spaces' at least, the conditions are ideal for so-called aesthetic experience: the surprise of heat, meet all these requirements. The compli-
neurophysiological experimentation. perceptual disorientation. The surprise affects cated programmed events are governed by
Michael Asher has established an environ- individuals differently, I suppose, but prob- sounds and movements in the garden itself,
ment in which minimal light and sound ably everyone experiences some sensation of as well as changes in weather. If one were not
stimuli place the subject in a condition of spatial infinity; some boundless oceanic sensa- interested in the vast concatenation of know-
suspension. If he navigates the white obscu- tion which Jung ascribed to certain kinds of ledge that can produce such programmes, one
rity slowly, he may well feel dizziness and art. These two environmentalists, then, are could still be enchanted by the flares of
perceptual disorientation. The thick carpeting really verifying certain basic assumptions random light and the irregular rhythm of
and sound-proofed walls and ceiling make it about the way we perceive depth, or space. sounds. The merit of Pulsa's performance is
impossible for the sensitive subject to respond, But they have, in their scientific way, with- in its liveliness, its variety of volatile stimuli,
as he would normally, while moving through. held commentary (I mean visual commentary) . which under certain circumstances could be
In the abnormality of response he may well Quite a while ago, Claude Bernard estab- called similar to the stimuli produced by
find a small adventure comparable to those lished that 'la fixité du milieu intérieur est la theatrical performances such as the ballet.
reported by explorers stranded in Antartica condition de la vie libre' — the stability of the I can't say the same for Robert Morris's
or at sea. Admiral Byrd who originally interior milieu is the condition of free expensive but silly room—an artificially-
wanted to 'taste peace... quiet and solitude activity. That stability in the human organism cooled, moisturized greenhouse in which steel
long enough to find out how good they really is the result of a marvellously organized alleys conduct the viewer through miniature
are' later felt a deep need for 'stimuli from the system into which pour countless stimuli. The mountains of baby spruce trees, with the
outside world ... sounds, smells, voices, touch'. free activity of the human organism, including avowed intention of playing with space
the imagination, is dependent on the variety experience and perspective, but finally just
of stimuli it receives and governs. Similarly, I seeming like an extravagance of the kind of
Eva Hesse Contingent 1969
Fischbach Gallery, New York would think that the work of art is dependent mind that likes to contemplate dioramas and
on the variety of stimuli it can induce, and its other World's Fair spectaculars. The slight
2
Michael Asher Untitled 1969 sensitivity to the thresholds of experience. surrealism in Morris's thought cannot redeem
8 ft high x 23 ft wide x 21 ft deep Asher's and Bell's rooms have nothing to do the basically literalist effect. I'm sure I'm not
Acoustical board, speakers, noise generator
Photograph by Claude Picasso with art, but only with one possible effect of the only one whose thoughts turned to the