public play
public play
[TI-15] on museums, public art, and other environments that offer us a new normal
Isamu Noguchi's Playscapes in Atlanta (image source Herman Miller)
I love when people just going about their normal lives suddenly become the focus of attention.
I visited L the other day at work. They had just started their job at the Exploratorium, which describes itself as a "museum of science, technology and arts." It's filled with interactive installations that illustrate how the natural world works, from pendulums and springs to lasers and reflections.
As we wandered around, I saw an old man attempt to blow a huge bubble out of a metal ring and break into a huge smile when it popped in his face. I watched a grandmother, mother, and daughter make funny faces at each other in front of a massive NASA mirror. I saw a teenager walk up to an exhibit, eyes going wide, twirling around the room, taking it all in. They reached out to touch the installation, so captivated by the experience that they tuned out the docent's voice telling them not to touch.
It suddenly became clear to me that the Exploratorium, for all its magical experiences, is about showing people. You would probably still enjoy going to the Exploratorium alone, but it really comes to life when you experience these tiny moments of curiosity together with everyone around you.
Artworks that incorporate audience participation are described as "participatory art." Wikipedia defines it as "an approach to making art which engages public participation in the creative process, letting them become co-authors, editors, and observers of the work."
The Exploratorium probably wouldn't use this term to describe their work, but contemporary artists do think about this actively.
In July, I visited the Tate Modern's solo retrospective of Yoko Ono. I've long admired the conceptual simplicity and emotional impact of her works. Her launch into the art world starts from her time in Fluxus[1], one of the first groups to pioneer "conceptual art." For an idea of what this means, works included Alison Knowles' Make a Salad (chopping a salad to the beat of live music and serving it to the audience), Nam June Paik's Zen for Film (an 8-minute short film of unprocessed film), and Ono's Cut Piece (a performance piece in which audience members are invited to cut pieces of Ono's clothing).
Zen for Film (source) and Cut Piece (source)
In her show at the Tate, the gallery was alive with people's actions, both present and past. Painting to Hammer a Nail provided a hammer and nails and asked you to hammer a piece of your hair into the frame. Wish Tree instructed visitors to write a wish and tie it to trees in the lobby. Bag Piece invited visitors to perform in the space by doing "whatever [they] want" (as the docent answered when we asked what was allowed) after putting on a large black canvas bag[2].
I can't find any documentation of this online now, but the original instructions for this piece say something like enter bag, take all clothes off, put all clothes back on, exit bag. So that's exactly what S and I did after we got in.
It was a really strange feeling, to say the least. From seeing others perform, your brain knows that you can't see into the bag. However, the first thing you notice when you go under, is that you can see out of the bag and watch everyone staring at you performing. So it feels like everyone is watching you strip into your underwear.
This piece probably had the most pronounced effect on me of all the ones in the show. It changed my agency in a significant way—pushing me to act in a way that I would never have dared to act in a similar setting without it, and my mind feels permanently rewired as a result of it.
Broadly, all participatory art tries to engender some kind of public play. The goal is to create an environment where we feel safe enough to play with actions that we might not normally consider.
When applied at a community scale, we see the compounding effects that these practices can have. Mutual aid fridges make it feel normal to redistribute your extra food to people in need. Little Free Libraries create an environment where it's easy to exchange books with neighbors. Every piece of public participatory art gives us the excuse to try on a new normal.
How people use these environments depends a lot on their constraints.
The Portal, a circular real-time video screen connecting Dublin, Ireland and New York City, was shut down for 6 days due to "inappropriate behavior."[3] It relaunched with the installment of 24-hour security in New York as well as blurring the live stream if people approached with phones.
Ideally, we find ways to make communal participatory experiences that don't require this kind of heavy-handed authority yet still encourage "good" behavior.
These participatory sites are effectively games: designing a controlled environment and narrative for players to experience a new range of agency. The key difference is that you can't make anyone play as someone else in real life. We have to meet them where they are and convince them of the desired behavior.
In my practice, which emphasizes participation, I've tried to move beyond the participatory to foster solidarity, inviting visitors to not only shape the work themselves but also create their own works and versions of the technology. I want to create environments that are shaped by the acts of the people who visit them, thereby highlighting our human experience through a specific human's experience. And I want to also provide the infrastructure that empowers visitors to steward and propagate that experience in the future within their own communities.
I think deeply about the spectrum of participation in digital spaces. So many of our digital experiences are devoid of other people's presence. Every day, we scroll past hundreds of people and stories, but they feel more like ghosts than real people. We're missing the texture that comes from live interactions. We need spaces that allow us to express ourselves more richly—digital playgrounds.
Mindy Seu, an author, designer, and artist championing cyberfeminism, has been experimenting with a participatory lecture that plays out on everyone's phone at the same time through Instagram stories. This format hijacks our devices as facilitators for a collective performance and redefines the significance of the everyday action of clicking through social media content.
VJYourself!, a work by playmodes studio, features a magic mirror that plays back snapshots of visitors' movements in a mosaic-like collage. I experienced a small version of the work in Portland last month and was blown away by how it invited strangers to dance together in front of a mirror, figuring out new ways to combine compositions together.
The key, I think, in all of these experiences that makes them feel good is that there's a balance between players feeling ownership in their actions while nudging them to notice or do something they otherwise wouldn't. Something encourages the player to go from a lurker to an active participant. And hopefully, they leave with a greater sense of agency that they can then impart onto their broader community.
There's an art to creating an environment that makes people comfortable co-creating a space. I’m still trying to crack it, but I’m excited that there’s so much inspiration to learn from.
What have you noticed in the participatory art you've encountered? Are there everyday practices that we can do that promote these kinds of spaces? What's one of your favorite public play encounters?
Updates
Welcome to all the new subscribers! We're now over 1000 subscribers :) shout out to all the ones who have been here since day one. I encourage you to be an active participant and treat our comments sections as a space for public play too
I launched my first ever shop for the interactive, computing-infused ceramics I've been working on. I've got 2 pieces left before I’m sold out on this round and will likely prepare one more batch this year for holiday season! If your company or organization is interested in a custom commission or collab, let me know!
I'm a member of the NEW INC Art & Code cohort this year. I'm excited to be visiting New York a lot more this year and scheming my largest installation work to date!
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I was quite taken with the trampolines in Copenhagen next to the canal. People who were once walking expressionless are suddenly jumping up and down with a huge smile!