20:50, Project Room South, Studio 016

All of these works unite the established system of inter-relations. Their essence is the effect produced. When they effect, they are brought into existence.

An art object brings changes to the exhibition place and vice versa; the exhibition place and the art object exist in "a loose association" which means that they can always fall apart into two independent units. However, in the instant when they are united they function as a whole.

An audience is active, dynamic and divisible, a transitional part of the art work. The art work functions in an almost theatrical manner, as a stage set up for an unpredicted conscious or unconscious experimental performance and observation.

There exists, however, a difference between the approaches of A. Šušteršič and R. Wilson, although for the spectator they are imperceptible during his/her observation. The difference lies in the treatment of the given exhibition place which forms a part of the pre-given architecture. If Wilson incorporates the specific environment (architecture) into the work, Šušteršič intervenes in a given exhibition space and transforms it. In the 'final' phase both works are a coherent structure of the exhibition place and the (incorporated) art object. The works establish a relationship between the given and the created, between the whole and the fragment.

The processes are different but the effect is the same.

Site specific

Wilson allows changes; "20:50" is exposed to the unknown, it allows the transformation of the work in new environments. The art object is always the same, but the art work may be different.

Šušteršič makes specific interventions in each new (specific space); she does not move the same work from one place to another. It is absolutely 'site specific'. The existence of the work has time limits defined by the duration of the exhibition. Afterward the object exists as a document, as photographs or plans. Before and after the physical presentation the work exists in the form of inscriptions.

The "20:50" work transforms itself in time and place, while "Studio 016" and "Project Room South" are dynamic only within the time of the same exhibition space.

20:50

The viewer of the "20:50" can be found outside the exhibition space and can already sense the smell of the heating oil, without becoming aware that this is already a part of the art work. The spectator of the art work, in the aluminium corridor surrounded by oil, establishes his own degree of activity. A part of his/her body can be confronted with oil (which is one of the art work's elements), the observer can reach out his/her hand (expose his/her face) and the reflection appears on the surface of the oil. The reflection is never fixed. The viewer can also establish physical contact; the reflection approaches the invisibility once the hand is in the oil. Through the ripples in the oil the reflected image becomes abstracted. The haptic of the oil cannot necessarily be experienced. This is a personal choice.

The narrowing of the corridor leading to the inner part of the work affects the spectator's movement depending on the extent of his/her constriction.

The field of the event:

The dynamics of the relationship between the art object and the place of exhibition are shown in the established field. In "20:50" the field appears between the oil surface and the roof construction of the exhibition area. The spectator finds himself in this field when his shadow or his reflection appear. If the spectator intervenes in this field and there is a reflection, then the field appears between, for instance, his hand or face and the surface of the oil. The spectator thus affects the field.

The experience of reflection is an optical phenomenon. The reflection is two dimensional, but it appears as if it were three dimensional. The reflection of architectural elements is visually just as real as the architecture of the exhibition space itself.

Since the room is about a meter high filled with oil, it should appear lower however the impression, the visual effect of reflections on the oil's surface is a visual duobling (a visual expansion) of the volume of the exhibition space. The visual volume of the space is therefore the same, as if the reduction of the space had never occurred. The images are doubled, replicated and in a state of constant flux, the effects are created in front of one's eyes.

Auto-morphism is a kind of bilateral image formation, or more precisely, the inversion of the image. The reflection enables Wilson to create an inversion of the physical intervention. The things are placed where they do not normally belong, they are taken out of their ordinary context (the reflection of the ceiling on the oil is the floor). The reflection is weightless.

The reflection, however, is not a metaphor of the image.

In "the era of mechanical reproduction" Wilson's work appears sublime. It is an era when it is difficult to state which experience we value more: the original or its depiction through the media interpretation which is in a sense a reflection of the event. In Wilson's work the confrontation of the reflection and the original seem inseparable. The reflection is just as real as the environment itself, they are equal part objects of the same field.

The borders of the field are defined by the surface of the oil and the physical border of the physical barrier above it( the roof construction, the hand). The field is two, three, or four dimensional. The reflection is two dimensional, while the exhibition place and the art object are three dimensional, and the changing, transformational reflection of the exhibition place under the influence of daylight introduces the fourth dimension (the dynamics).

more (Project Room South)