Mirror Affect: Interpersonal Spectatorship in Installation Art Since the 1960S
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MIRROR AFFECT: INTERPERSONAL SPECTATORSHIP IN INSTALLATION ART SINCE THE 1960S by Cristina Albu BA in English-American Studies, University of Bucharest, 2003 BA in European Cultural Studies, University of Bucharest, 2003 MA in European Cultural Policy and Administration, University of Warwick, 2005 MA in History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Cristina Albu It was defended on February 14, 2012 and approved by Josh Ellenbogen, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture Adam Lowenstein, Associate Professor, English and Film Studies Barbara McCloskey, Asssociate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Terry Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Cristina Albu 2012 iii MIRROR AFFECT: INTERPERSONAL SPECTATORSHIP IN INSTALLATION ART SINCE THE 1960S Cristina Albu, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation traces the genealogy of interpersonal spectatorship in contemporary installations that encourage viewers to affectively relate to one another by watching themselves seeing and acting individually or as a group. By incorporating reflective surfaces, live video feedback, or sensors in their works, contemporary artists around the world have been challenging what had come to be a binary relation between the beholder and the art object, thereby, heightening viewers' awareness of the social and spatial contexts of aesthetic experience. Starting with the 1960s there has been not only an increasingly sharp departure from the autonomy of the art object on the part of artists, but also a rejection of prevailing self-focused and private modes of art spectatorship on the part of viewers of art. Situated between theories of relational aesthetics and new media theories of interactivity, my dissertation examines the social, cultural, and technological factors that have contributed to the production of installations that act as affective interfaces between multiple viewers. I argue that contemporary artworks with mirroring properties have triggered a shift towards increasingly public and interpersonal forms of art spectatorship that are consonant with the emergence of new modes of perception and sociability shaped by enhanced surveillance, unavoidable multitasking, and online networking. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE....................................................................................................................................IX 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 RESEARCH RATIONALE................................................................................ 2 1.2 INSTALLATION ART BETWEEN RELATIONAL AESTHETICS, INTERACTION, AND PARTICIPATION ....................................................................... 5 1.3 MIRROR AFFECT ........................................................................................... 16 1.4 MIRRORING ACTS: METHODOLOGY AND TERMINOLOGY............ 21 1.5 DISSERTATION OUTLINE............................................................................ 28 2.0 MIRROR FRAMES: SPECTATORS IN THE SPOTLIGHT IN THE ART OF THE 1960S................................................................................................................................... 31 2.1 FROM REFLECTIVE OBJECTS AND SELF FOCUSED VISION TO REFLECTIVE ENVIRONMENTS AND COLLECTIVE AWARENESS .................. 39 2.2 THE MIRROR AS SOCIAL INTERFACE IN THE ART PRACTICE OF MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO AND JOAN JONAS.............................................. 65 2.3 MIRRORING OTHERS: COLLECTIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH ART AND TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS ................................................................................. 94 2.3.1 Evaluative criteria of art and technology projects................................... 98 v 2.3.2 Environments and participatory responses to art in Europe during the post-World War II period ....................................................................................... 101 2.3.3 Collaborative production and collective reception of art and technology projects in U.S. ......................................................................................................... 108 2.3.3.1 When more is not a bore: collective participation in “Magic Theatre”............................................................................................................ 114 2.3.3.2 When less is more: positive implications of “failed” collaborations in LACMA’s Art and Technology program.................................................. 138 2.3.3.3 Between the Visible and the Invisible: Mirroring Acts in the Pepsi Pavilion..............………………………………………………………………153 2.4 VIDEO MIRRORS: TURNING THE CAMERA EYE ON THE ART VIEWERS ......................................................................................................................... 162 3.0 MIRROR SCREENS: WARY OBSERVERS UNDER THE RADAR............... 209 3.1 DOCILE BODY IMAGES UNDER REFRACTION................................... 235 3.2 DISCREPANT REFLECTIONS: THE MISE EN ABYME OF CONSUMER SPECTACLE............................................................................................ 263 3.3 INTERPERSONAL ALLIANCES ACROSS ACTUAL AND VIRTUAL PROJECTIONS................................................................................................................ 286 4.0 MIRROR INTERVALS: PROLONGED ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERS ... 317 4.1 SPATIO-TEMPORAL PASSAGEWAYS..................................................... 323 4.2 BECOMING MULTIPLE: AFFECTIVE SHARING ACROSS THE MIRROR INTERVAL..................................................................................................... 362 vi 4.3 REFLECTIVE SPECTATORSHIP: PRODUCTIVE DIFFERENCES AND INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONS BETWEEN VIEWERS ..................................... 386 5.0 MIRROR PORTALS: UNPREDICTABLE REFLECTIONS ACROSS THE INTERFACE OF NEW MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS........................................................... 407 5.1 COMPUTER INTERFACES AS UNFAITHFUL MIRRORS ................... 413 5.2 THE POETICS OF INTERACTION WITH OPEN-ENDED SYSTEMS IN PUBLIC SPACE............................................................................................................... 430 5.3 AFFECTIVE IMPULSES IN RHIZOMATIC NETWORKS..................... 451 6.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 466 APPENDIX................................................................................................................................ 479 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 493 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Mirroring Processes in Art since the 1960s.................................................................. 479 viii PREFACE This thesis is the outcome of many years of reflection on the complex relations between contemporary art practices, exhibition spaces, and more or less unitary networks of art participants. During my doctoral studies, I have gradually moved from an interest in the shifting meanings of site-specific installations to an interest in the variable affective and cognitive ties developed between spectators in response to works that enhance the public dimension of art encounter and call for interpersonal awareness. I am grateful to the members of my PhD committee for their invaluable guidance and unwavering support throughout the period of my graduate studies. I am deeply indebted to my advisor Terry Smith for encouraging me to develop my critical thinking and for teaching me to consider both the broad picture of art transformations and the particular conditions of art production and reception in different parts of the world. He has introduced me to the complexity of contemporary art currents and has been highly supportive of the interdisciplinary nature of my studies. I am thankful to him for his words of wisdom and encouragements during my preparation for conference presentations, as well as for his astute advice throughout all stages of my work on the dissertation. I am grateful, too, to Josh Ellenbogen for expanding my knowledge of the correlations between perception, art, and technology. His vivid portrayal of changes in visuality in the 19th century has been highly inspiring for my research. My deepest gratitude also goes to Barbara McCloskey who has considerably helped me establish and reevaluate the ix objectives of my project. Her rigorous comments and thought provoking questions have considerably helped me sharpen my arguments and reflect on the political implications of installation artworks with reflective properties. I am thankful, too, to Adam Lowenstein, for enhancing my understanding of theories of posthumanism and affect, as well as for his thoughtful comments on crossovers between cinema and art spectatorship. Last, but not least, my gratitude goes to Gao Minglu who acted as a member of my PhD committee for a period of several years. While health problems prevented him from attending my defense, he has been supportive of my research and has challenged me to consider the connections between