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May we suggest

Sponsored / February 2, 2020

Artwork in Its Space

To enhance audience experience, PHI turns physical spaces into storylines
Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, <em>To The Moon</em>, 2018. Photo: Sandra Larochelle, 2019, for “Cadavre exquis” exhibition. Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, To The Moon, 2018. Photo: Sandra Larochelle, 2019, for “Cadavre exquis” exhibition.
Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, <em>To The Moon</em>, 2018. Photo: Sandra Larochelle, 2019, for “Cadavre exquis” exhibition. Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, To The Moon, 2018. Photo: Sandra Larochelle, 2019, for “Cadavre exquis” exhibition.

Art historians often see American artist Bill Viola as one of the precursors of artistic immersion, who, by means of engaging artistic devices and scenographic and spatial strategies, has over time transported visitors into vivid universes where they could revisit their senses. Viola’s profound examination of the universal themes of life and death—concepts that were included in his solo exhibition “Naissance à rebours” as part of DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art’s (now Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art) 10th anniversary celebration in 2017–18—encapsulates the challenge faced by contemporary scenography as art galleries, art centres and museums are called upon to revisit how audiences experience art.

More and more, to fulfill this need, we explore unique approaches that surround audiences with a total perspective as they journey through emotions prompted by the conjunction of artwork, scenography and space. By translating the conceptual content of the artwork into a three-dimensional narrative space—with media that brings together different languages of representation and sensations—scenography has gradually become more interactive and participatory, but also more ambitious. Art, either experienced directly by the viewer or through extended reality (XR), which we explore at PHI, now immerses the audience in a way that overturns the traditional relationship between art object, artist and viewer.

This new relational aesthetic redefines the visitors’ experience in the space that hosts the artwork.

This new relational aesthetic redefines visitor experience: in this context, the physical location operates as a relational device, moving from container to content, capitalizing on the realm of human interaction and its social context rather than solely on its material aspect. Here, scenography and space play a crucial role by acting as a boundary object, connecting and engaging audiences through physical negotiation, thereby laying the foundations for an immersive dialogue between the viewers and the art. Immersion, then, might be experienced as a process of exchange—a connection—and as a set of relational transactions between audiences, spaces and artworks.

These new modes of reception mean that we need a better understanding of the nature of the immersive experience within a scenographic and spatial context as a whole—and even more so with XR exhibitions, in which audiences increasingly expect new experiences beyond the virtual-reality headset. While immersion is undoubtedly part of the answer to the art exhibition market’s challenges, curators, art galleries, art centres and museums need to reflect on how immersion is presented, brought to and experienced by the audience.

As Julie Tremblay, executive producer of installations and travelling exhibitions at PHI explains: “In designing VR-AR exhibitions and installations, we aim to communicate and enhance the emotions triggered by the artwork by creating only one storyline that will be reflected in both the VR content and in the physical space—leading to a multisensory journey that will leave an indelible impact on the audiences.”

How are space, materiality and scenography, which communicate the exhibition’s narrative, experienced through the visitor’s body? How does the experience have to be designed and presented in order to trigger one’s own sense of agency? These are questions we seek to collectively explore at PHI, especially as the contemporary art market transgresses the white-cube paradigm of space organization and transitions to a more total way of exhibiting and experiencing art. Could multidimensional art immersion be the answer to those challenges? At PHI, we think so.