ART 308 at Saint Mary's College of Maryland with instructor Fereshteh Toosi

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

your installation questions + answers from class

Q: How is it possible to make a large project, when materials could not be available?
A: If your ideal materials are unavailable, compromise! Find a way to accomplish the goal of your work with whatever is available to you. Limited materials are a great excuse for unusual art!

Q: Does the audience have to be able to interact/be involved in the piece for it to be an installation (besides just looking at it)?
A: Ideas and values of installation art reflect avant-garde innovations of the 20th century, which includes involvement between the viewer and art which results in activating the viewer to think or do something.

Q: I think that installation art deals with involvement of the viewer. How does art that does not involve the viewer but claims to be installation art work or why is it still installation art?
A: By involvement, do you mean direct interaction in a physical sense? All art involves the viewer, in the sense that it is being seen and considered. I don't believe that physical interaction in necessary to define a work as an "installation"... an object could easily fulfill this rule without being a space.

Q: Does installation art have to be something large, small, or something where the viewer has to use more than sight?
A: I think installation art can be those things (large, small, require more than sight) but I do not think that it is necessary for it to be one or the other to qualify as installation art.

Q: Can an installation take place in more than one place at a time?
A: Yes, video monitors or a series of installations can be found around a city. They are an installation as a whole.

Q: How do I make my project go along with the site?
A: The site and the project have to complement each other. The object, the event, and the position it occupies have to have a specific relationship. It could be made out of some material or the object being presented has something to do with the place or space.

Q:Does there need to be an object in an installation?
A: No, there does not need to be an object. Sometimes, an installation can consist of audio as a material, or projected light, or even just hot air.

Q: If you take a ready-made (found object) and put it in a space, is that an installation or does it still stay as a sculpture?
A: I thinik it is still a sculpture because there is not an intended exchange when sculpture is placed somewhere randomly.

Q: Can installation involve performance (live art)?
A: I think that it can, as long as it involves the viewer in some way. Nix the 4th wall. A good example might be living statue street performers.

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