WASHINGTON—At first glance it appears to be any ordinary elevator. But it’s actually a work of art.
The ceiling of the elevator is covered with a photo of a plane in flight.
A similar story is told in the emergency stairwell. It appears to be nothing special, but it, too, is a work of art. Walking down the staircase, Alberto Gaitán’s media exhibition is heard but not seen.
Brink and Boundary is a unique artwork exhibition showing at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C. All of the different pieces in the exhibition possess multisensory features that set them apart from more traditional forms of art.
Brink and Boundary also makes use of the Katzen Arts Center’s non-exhibition spaces–ones that are “overlooked and forgotten”–such as the emergency stairwell, the elevator, the entryway, and the barrier surrounding the main entrance.
Located within the entryway of the Katzen Arts Center is an auditory exhibition piece that invites visitors to link to a mobile app on their smartphones.
“You had the dream? You had the dream again?” said a voice from an app.
“Yes I dreamed I was choking and couldn’t breathe,” replied another voice.
Halsey Burgund’s piece entitled “Hotel Dreamy,” does not have a physical side but exists digitally in a smartphone application or in a touchscreen terminal, both of which are only able to be used within Katzen Arts Center.
“Hotel Dreamy” is an auditory piece of art that explores dreams and the ways people interpret their dreams.
Burgund’s piece has a unique form of interactivity. The piece allows users to contribute their dreams–using the smartphone application–and their own meanings behind them. Each visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to help make the exhibit even more unique.
Away from the entryway and “Hotel Dreamy” is Adam Good’s piece “Untitled.”
“Honey this is your blood to take and make and take and make flow,” the words appear on blue stickers stuck to the
glass walls surrounding the main entrance of the Katzen Arts Center.
Using words that were taken from a scholarship piece by Felix Gonzales-Torres, Good explored whether or not context is essential to understanding words. If words are removed from their original context and arranged in a different way do they still retain their original meaning? This is a question Good tries to answer.
Moving inside the museum’s exhibit space, another artist had a different take on the multisensory exhibition.
Hasan Elahi chose to make use of one of Katzen’s elevators to present his piece entitled, “Sky.”
“Sky” makes up the entire ceiling of an elevator in the Katzen Arts Center, and presents the image of a plane in flight against a gray sky.
The empty sky leaves the viewer wondering about the fate of the flight and “turns the elevator into a mobile site for reflection and a charged form of sky-gazing,” according to the promotional brochure for the exhibit.
The last piece of art in Brinks and Boundary has its entrance on the third floor. In his piece, Gaitán presents a seemingly empty staircase with a loud-high-pitched-acoustic noise.
The audio exhibit called, “Untitled,” is a three-story staircase descending from the third-floor to the first.
As the listener enters the stairwell, they are immediately hit by the high-pitched ringing. This, combined with the echo of their footsteps, creates a sensory overload for the listener, forcing them into a state of hyper sensitivity.
This hyper sensitivity helps provide the viewer with a sense of meditative calm and lets them fully take in the exhibit.
For more information on the exhibits at the museum this summer, visit the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center’s website.