Oblivious

Olivia Robinson's Oblivious is a naked man on a table who reacts to touch.

Robinson described the work:

A naked man is sleeping on this table. As you touch the soft surface of the table, the man reacts physically. He wiggles, leans or rolls over in response to your pokes, prods, caresses, tickles and slaps. In response to the intensity and frequency of your touch, as if shrinking from this unbidden intimacy, his image fades away. Oblivious touches on issues of power, vulnerability, potential for abuse or intimacy, as well as our level of comfort with a naked male body.

The image of the man fades in the areas that have been touched the most. Over time, as more and more people interact with him, those areas will become rubbed or "touched" away. His evolving body becomes a record of people's hands and where they have chosen to touch him. At the beginning of an exhibition he will be completely opaque, present and oblivious of your existence; over time he will change in accordance with the collective interaction.

Is it just me, or does that guy look a bit like a young Jean Tinguely?


Inbed (2008) is a similar (perhaps derivatively so) project by ITP student Drew Burrows.




Burrow's describes the project:

In the piece a person climbs into an empty bed with a projected woman sleeping on it. Though the bed is empty, the projection gives the feeling of having someone there beside them. As the person climbs into the bed the projected woman moves close to cuddle and reacts accordingly as the person moves around on the bed. I wanted to give both the sensations of being alone and having someone in the bed with the viewer at the same time.

The aim of the piece was to speak on the feelings of loneliness, affection, and intimacy.

I'm also reminded of You Are Now Becoming Who You Are To Be (2004), a non-interactive work by Holly Andres. That work consists of a video of a young woman projected upon a bed. She shifts around on the bed and her silk chemise slowly changes from white to red.

Paul Chan's The 7 Lights Website

Paul Chan's First Light was my favorite work in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Above is documentation of that artwork which comes from a special website that the New Museum has put together to go with Paul Chan's new exhibition, The 7 Lights.

Here's what Ceci Moss wrote about the Paul Chan website on Rhizome:

The site presents elaborate documentation of the exhibition, in the form of video, text, audio, and drawings. In the spirit of Creative Commons, the source files for Chan's animations are also available for download and modification. This underlying feature inserts a unique interactive component to the website and, further, to the exhibition itself.