#198: The Imaginary Art Immersive Experiences

A room based on the Van Gogh Immersive Experience: a room in which artworks are projected onto all four walls with chairs scattered around and facing the centre of the room for visitors to sit and enjoy.  Unlike the Van Gogh Immersive Experience, nothing is projected onto the floor.

There are three variations:

198a 

The text from Imaginary Art blog posts are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.

198b

AI generated art created from the text of Imaginary Artworks is projected onto the walls, while the text from the posts are read by computer simulated voices, accompanied by ambient music.  

Terminals are available so that visitors are able to create their own artworks in the same way and add them to the slideshow.

All art used by the AI to generate its own work is cited, online and on screens within the room.  Prints of these works, and those made by AI, are available from the gift shop.

198c

A future variation of the above.  Visitors take it turns (if they wish) to wear devices that are able to show their thoughts on screens.  They are invited to read the text from Imaginary Art blog posts that are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.  Each reading is accompanied by the images that the person wearing the device is imagining.

#197: Tate Modern Turbine Hall Proposal

197a An Exhibition of Imaginary Art

Screens cover the walls on either side and the far end of the hall up to the height of the parallel girder that is on the southern side.  These form a zig zag shape, rather than being completely flat.

Onto these screens are, in some places projected (in a changing slideshow) and others printed, a series of Imaginary Artworks for people to stand, or sit, and read and imagine.  Elsewhere are stickers on the floor with shorter Imaginary Art examples and tablets on plinths and table tops on which visitors can browse the whole blog or a slideshow.  These are placed so that visitors have to stand facing in different directions.

These works are supplemented by boards giving a background to Imaginary Art and workshops encouraging visitors to create their own.  Slowly, the results of these workshops are worked into the slideshows of Imaginary Art.

197b People at an Exhibition

Boards on the bridge across the Turbine Hall and on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floor viewing points invite visitors to watch those who are viewing An Exhibition of Imaginary Art.  

They ask visitors to look at how people are portraying themselves, to see how they look in any given moment, to think about the impressions they give out and how the viewer sees them, before imploring them to find a mirror and ask the same questions about themself.

#196: Maneck's Refrigerator

A refrigerator.  On it is written:

Maneck was silent as they persevered to rescue the shreds of their livelihood. Not all their skills with needle and thread could sew it together again, he thought. Did life treat everyone so wantonly, ripping the good things to pieces while letting bad things fester and grow like fungus on unrefrigerated food? Vasantrao Valmik the proofreader would say it was all part of living, that the secret of survival was to balance hope and despair, to embrace change. But embrace misery and destruction? No. If there were a large enough refrigerator, he would be able to preserve the happy times in this flat, keep them from ever spoiling; and Avinash and chess, which soured so soon, he would save that too; and the mountains of snow, and the General Store, before it all went gloomy …

But it was an unrefrigerated world. And everything ended badly. What could he do now? … There was no way out, it was checkmate for him.

Mistry, Rohinton (1995) A Fine Balance. London, Vintage, p.505.

What would you save?

#195: Omprakash's Coat of Good Times

‘If time were a bolt of cloth,’ said Om, ‘I would cut out all the bad parts. 

How would yours look?

 Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable.

Om has concerns about his: would you have enough fabric?

 Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.’

Or far too much?

---

Quote from p.310 of Mistry, Rohinton (1995) A Fine Balance. London, Vintage.

#194: Support (An Exhibition of Prescribed Experiences to Help Visitors Understand How They Feel)

A leaflet and poster campaign is launched throughout the country.  Both include the following quote:

“Whatever you might be feeling, make a bookshelf of the writers who speak to you most, compile your favourite poems, go to your local gallery to experience art in the flesh or curate your own mini exhibition that will help you get through. Look to art for the answers because across the years, decades, or centuries, in work by someone who lived a completely different existence to you, you’ll find something you instantly recognise. And when you do, you can pass it on to someone else who might need it too.” - Katy Hessel.

as well as details of how to recommend art, literature, music, film, tv, or anything that might help aid people’s passages through different feelings and experiences.

Following on from this is an exhibition of the recommended (or prescribed) “medications” is staged.

At the centre is a sculpture called Support.  It features people crouched down in a circle supporting and raising up someone who is lying on a circular platform curled into a ball.

The exhibition shop only stocks leaflets and books aimed at supporting and helping attendees with their problems.