blubs about Bench [exterior/interior] project

Bench [exterior/interior] is a two part project centered around two site specific architectural fixtures (one inside, one outside) at the Wood Gallery at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Both parts of the work are related in the sense they will both contain at least one window and one bench. In both works the bench operates in a utilitarian manner; as public seating and as positioning mechanism. There is something very public about a bench. No manner where they are installed, people generally feel welcomed to use them. When we sit on benches, we sort of assume their accumulated spaces within our own, creating an instant familiarity which borders on momentary ownership. As passerby's and viewers engage with work (by sitting on the bench), they are presented with multiple rifts with which to seem. The confrontations begin.

The work itself does not rely on the positioning of viewers on benches for operation. What the benches do, is offer viewers alternative experiences to navigate different rifts and antagonisms (for the sake of forming new meanings and associations). As both benches are positioning device within the work, viewers will most likely be looking for visual cues, within their position, as to what they should be looking toward or looking at. For the exterior bench, viewers will look out toward a small gathering of windows coming out of the ground (at varying degrees). The exterior bench will also have a pole mounted speaker set directly behind it, lowly playing sounds of people socializing and laughing in large groups. The windows set into the ground are meant to operate as metaphors of social constructs. Simultaneously, they also operate as metaphors for democracy, industry, and civilization within the displaced setting of sound and exterior public space.

The interior bench will be placed directly in front of one of the gallery's 3 x 20 foot rear-facing windows. Within the window sill will be an etched piece of glass. On the glass will be a projected video of a sequence which illustrates the obscurity of activities which occur within interior spaces. The window in this part of the project works in two ways: as utilitarian framing device (to watch the video), and metaphor for the liminality which exists between culture manifest and culture understood. The video sequence operates as fetishistic documentation of spectatorship as well as trigger in assuming a comfortable distance from culture as spectacle when received through video media.

working plans [bench]

Below is a rough illustration for the upcoming work I will be setting up in Vermont for my graduate exhibition. The plans include an audio track which will run on a loop through an installed outdoor speaker. The bench is a pre-existing public structure outside of the Wood Gallery.


Below is a very rough version of my audio track. I plan to re-record the train noise as well as the crowded room noise for another version. Click play to hear the work in progress.

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Throughout the planning process, many ideas have come and gone. Here is one of my favorite mistakes. It is a gaudy interactive intrusion to a public space - obnoxious yes... but changes public space into spectacle, with complications. Difficult to see from the crude illustration, the bench is upholstered with soft red velvet in the sculptural manner of a large peony - petal like. Underneath the bench are installed bird barbs.