#5 Crowd, 2007Kristan Horton – Toronto, Ontario
Conceptual installation
Being my first time to experience Nuit Blanche, the first exhibit I came across was titled “Crowd”, which made for an interesting first impression. Ironically enough as I was approaching the piece, a ‘crowd’ of onlookers had already gathered, which again seemed like the artist’s intentions. The installation focus was on this foreign object, resembling a UFO, messily covered in a green plastic tarp. From underneath, it seemed like there was a device that would allow smoke to escape to give the illusion of the object in motion or “landing” on Earth.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to witness the ship’s “landing” in time, but it seemed like the highly-abstract piece carried some heavier meaning underneath its messy tarp. In the background, spotlights were centered on the object, along with speakers playing classical music accompanied with a male, authoritative voice talking about aliens, almost resembling John F. Kennedy. This made the piece controversial in a sense that the artist portrayed such a sensitive topic in way that seemed trivial, because the piece was abstract and had a disheveled look to it. Despite its abstractness, the artist’s played in on the viewer’s senses, including auditory and visual, leaving the rest up to the viewer’s imagination. The artist’s intention was to test the viewer’s senses and the concept of reality. Movement was achieved through our aural senses, with music suddenly playing and stopping and voices suddenly speaking and then stopping as well, while the object lay motionless in the center. Is it a real alien or not?!
-Alicia
2 comments:
The artist did manage to make me ponder about his or her intentions. The audio an dthe lights grabbed my attention. However, i still could not figure out what it all meant.
I think maybe we missed the very beginning of the piece (?) when there was white smoke coming from underneath it. Maybe that would've helped but I agree is was one of the more abstract pieces. It gave me a sense of carelessness the way the piece was disheveled and the metal scaffolding surrounding it. That's just my interpretation.
As for the purpose, I'm not sure if it was so much about whether or not aliens exist or not, but instead the idea of testing the audience's senses, which forms our sense of reality. Just like the artist said, what is being "heard" and "seen" is what makes for a believable encounter.
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