The installation is created by a hose and a spotlight placed in the ceiling of the room, the hose is punctured with tiny holes and creates a fine mist of water falling towards the floor. The light hits the mist as it falls to the ground, creating a rainbow visible for the viewer at certain positions in the room. The rainbow will change in visibility and appearance depending on the distance of the viewer thus is the very existence of the artwork dependent on the presence of the spectator and optical functions of the eye.
The installation is by the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, and materializes a crecurrent theme in his works; the involvement of the spectator with the artwork. Beauty does not exist in its complete state without our vision, it is a collaboration between the eye and a natural phenomena, and that is what creates the experience. At the same time the construction of the installation is made clearly visible, and so the illusion of the work is exposed. The romantic scene is thereby broken by the exposure of the design, and enables the viewer to understand the experience itself as a construction.
Beauty has the potential to make us reflect on our own constructions of reality and our perception of nature. Is our idea of nature a construction? We illustrate rain as “weather”, however, is the idea of weather natural or cultural? The installation makes us highly aware of our surroundings, and our place in them, the environment comes closer and invites our involvement. And as the installation Beauty depends on human involvement to exist, it also raises questions about the human role in the occurring environmental changes and to what extent our environment now is depending on our actions for its future existence.
Welcome to the blog for the course KUN4500. Here the students will make their blog entries and comment on current topics in art history. Spring 2016 are all about design in nature.
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