Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Janet Cardiff's work seems to be so much about structure. It is really interesting, the way in which she talks about shifting structures, using and subverting them in different ways. I particularly enjoyed the way she talked about lines at the Disney World and using that structure at the Venice Biennial to talk about hierarchy in the structure of movie going or of waiting in line for entertainment. The structure involved in going to a movie is one that has become subconscious at this point, but it is a tradition that has its origin somewhere, like any other tradition. I suppose it is impossible for anyone to address all of these things in a work, every piece needs some structure to support itself. It seems a very interesting and complex problem to work through. It is hard for me to think of another artist who uses or calls into question a structure as basic as standing in line. I remember Mariko Mori highlighting a waiting period in her venice biennial piece Sharing a Brainwave in 2005. I waited in line for an hour to go inside this space that allowed three people in at a time. Unfortunately, the waiting outside was more memorable than the inside of the piece. This would have been incredibly interesting if she had taken a page from Janet Cardiff and the waiting itself had been considered, so that the outside became just as important as the inside of the piece.

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