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Reckoning with the Unknowable in Olafur Eliasson's Art

The concept of “hyperobjects” become useful to frame how we think through “the immense, structural forces all around us, and even inside us, that we cannot see with our eyes but strive to comprehend.”

Hyperobjects are massive, complex phenomena we can't fully see or grasp, but understand through vast data collection, their effects, and interdisciplinary study. (see: climate, plastic pollution)

Your Curious Journey artworks may be seen as microcosms of hyperobjects through which we may contemplate the incomprehensible.

Perception: When Seeing Might Not Always Be Believing

In the pursuit of empirical accuracy, emphasis was placed on lenticular advancements in scientific tools, which would enable closer observation e.g. microscope and telescope. Martin Jay's called it “Ocularcentrism.”

Our visual grasp of the world is wobbly. Optical illusions challenge the reliability of sight alone in understanding reality. A simple shift in perspective, sometimes encouraged by new contexts or functions, may lead you to perceive something entirely different. (related: [[Reality Is Not What It Seems#3.1 The extended present|The extended present]])

Ventilator is a playful study of how we can be made to perceive invisible elements such as air. Whilst steady streams of wind often serve the practical function of cooling us down, the fan in Ventilator circulates air without objective, rendering a utilitarian object effectively rudderless.

Perspective: From Individual to Collective

Etymologically, “phenomenology” derives from the Greek “phainomenon” (“appearance”). In that sense we can think of phenomenology as the study of appearances (as opposed to reality) and our inevitably subjective experiences of them.

Experiences of the world depend on us, the experiencing subjects, due to our unique contexts and backgrounds.

A collectivised understanding of such global moments of rupture does not negate the individual experience; a binary structure that pits the individual against the collective may be considered an unproductive and limited framework for thinking about experience.

Much of the individual's subjective experiences are formed through interactions with the collective. (see: The cubic structural evolution project, 2004)

Beauty, 1993. Though the water is constantly flowing, the appearance of this apparition varies depending on our position relative to the artwork. Does the rainbow exist independently, or does it exist because we perceive it?

Olafur Eliasson in conversation with Firdaus Sani

Situated Knowledge: Haraway says we are limited by who we are and where we are and it is very easy to privilege our own point of view because of this very reason. The only way we can really see and test these prejudices is by interacting with each other. By engaging in meaningful conversations with those around us, we are able to change some of the ways in which we think, or make or unmake some of our prejudices.

Itinerant Marginalia

Circulation: In a closed loop, this movement emphasises cyclicality, continuance and renewal.

Currents: Oceans, winds, magnets; such currents may be felt, they are often invisible to the human eye. Need visual assistance and demand a different or more expanded understanding of perception.

Elemental: Elements are building blocks or individual units that may not seem to make sense or appear to be of much significance but accrue meaning through accumulation or when arranged to form an entity with greater strength and presence.

Gestural: Relates to movement or actions, bodily or otherwise, which evoke ideas, feelings or intentions and are sometimes used to provide emphasis. The term is commonly used to describe the emotive processes of contemporary dancers, ink calligraphers, or method actors.

Glacial time: Useful as a framework to destabilise human-centred concepts of time.

Lapses: Gaps, or the spaces between two points, that remain unaccounted for, unquantifiable or elude detection. In a capitalist system that prioritises linear continuity, lapses may be read as moments of loss (e.g. time lost, numbers lost or communities lost). At the same time, lapses often reveal the limits of our preexisting epistemological frameworks or of our mental and perceptual faculties (e.g. lapses in judgement, memory or concentration). In some instances, these lapses may be seen as opportunities, like lacunae to be filled by imagination. They may even serve as tools for protection against surveillance or observation.

Liquefaction: The experience of becoming liquid is one of sitting between rigidity and formlessness, of entering a transitory and impermanent state.

Paradoxical: A paradoxical statement or concept is one that is true and untrue at the same time. Whilst the two are often presented as a binary, they may also be thought of as being two sides of the same coin, or irrevocably and indistinguishably entangled. By laying bare the imagined and real tensions between seemingly disparate states, we may open ourselves up towards considering radical terms of intersections instead of divides.

Pulsation: With clockwork-like consistency, they are the rhythms of a well-oiled machine.

Social time: A temporal scale that is governed by an individual's subjective perception. Consider, for example, the common saying that “time flies when you're having fun.” An individual's experience of time may be influenced by the presence or lack of external stimuli, such as other people. Different social situations inspire different perceptions of temporality, as such, social time is inherently elastic.

Spin: Accelerated linear movement that rotates on an axis.

Suspension: A state where processes are temporarily stalled, or various elements are mixed but remain immiscible. In figures of speech, it is used in phases such as “suspending disbelief,” which describes willing oneself to suppress critical thinking—to believe what can be seen, however impossible it may be.

Swing: The syncopation of pointed beats at irregular intervals, commonly employed in jazz.

Variability: Characterised by lack of predictability or the apparent absence of a fixed pattern. Even in situations where an outcome is predictable, variations could arrive at any moment, so a conclusion may not be drawn until the event has concluded.

Recalibrating Perception

How can we experience light beyond our sight? (see: Tactility of light)

Seeing Yourself Seeing

See: Beauty (1993)

Eliasson's concepts of seeing-yourself-seeing or sensing-yourself-seeing attempt “to introduce relationships between having an experience and simultaneously evaluating and being aware that you are having this experience.”

The artwork is completed by the observer's acknowledgement of the perception cues of their own body and mind.

Seeing Through Skin

Human beings can predict modal perceptions that have yet to occur using a prior modality; for example, we might predict a material's tactile quality based on its appearance before touching it.

Per Deleuze's theory of haptic vision, materiality confers upon the eye a tactile, or rather haptic, function when “sight discovers in itself a specific function of touch that is uniquely on its own, distinct from its optical function.”

The object can be “seen” how it would feel to the touch, without any actual touching.

Art and Architecture, Science and Enchantment

The way a Japanese chef serves a perfect segment of tomato: It might not actually be the tastiest tomato in the world, but the presentation delivers the best tomato experience you will ever have. Similarly, Eliasson delivers the best architectural experience you will ever have, because he takes an aspect of everyday architectural experience and puts a spotlight on it.

Eliasson uses various “spotlighting” techniques. Yellow corridor is a work that stripes out information. We experience a much-reduced fraction of the usual light spectrum bouncing off surfaces, yet the strangeness created by this lack of data makes us much more alert to the remaining information.

If we apply the 2000-year-old Vitruvian triad: Utilitas (convenience), Firmitas (durability) and Venustas (beauty), we realise that Eliasson's work lacks the traditional components of Utilitas and Firmitas. He allows us to experience delight more intensely and then invites us to wonder at our intense response.

Umschreibung (2004): a staircase, devoid of practical function, with steps of different height, requires all our attention to climb. Useless, demanding and difficult to navigate, it makes us think about every element of a staircase, quite unlike our usual stairs, which we use easily and unthinkingly.

Eliasson's works are completed by the participation of the viewer, whose experience is defined by both the location of their body in space and the cultural frameworks that inform how they interact with their environment.

In The weather project (2003), the huge foggy orange sun may bring to mind a perfect warm summer for a European visitor or an apocalyptic dry season choked with particles of cremated rainforest for a haze-suffering Southeast Asian. By constrast, Ventilator (1997) would perhaps be more resonant in Singapore, as ceiling fans are such a feature of our domestic histories, and seeing this wayward fan is like seeing a dear old friend dancing.

Post-modern, contemporary art has developed a strong shamanic quality, with artists assigned the role of leading us through the mysteries of our shared dreams, anxieties and visions. A visit to an art museum is a little like a hallucinogenic trip with a spiritual guide.

Many museums endeavour to be a safe space where we are allowed to escape our rigid, mechanistic demands for productivity, for logic, for defined pedagogical outcomes, to be free, to feel uncertain and open instead.