A long day in the Macc Art Lounge today, a very cold and quiet day, with 10-20 visitors or so, which is a typical Thursday. Spoke to a few people and the artists. The creative output and choices were in hanging some new abstract paintings. Almost all of the paintings in the shop are abstract or landscape, this is what sells in a commercial setting like this. People are broadly looking for decoration of the right quality and price, the artist, and the investment in the art itself, is a secondary factor.
Returned home and went to the first evening of Wave-Field, some musical see-saws in the Lyceum Square. These are fun, they are simply see-saws which light up when used and play sounds. It appears to have been thought up as a clever idea, with no artistic value or comment; the creator is (apparently) an architect with little interest in art itself. This is interesting in a field where hyperbole and all sorts of nonsense is written about art. Of course, this writing is important. No writing about the artistic content does not mean the art is meaningless.
There are many things Wave-Field could be about in an artistic sense; the saws, in a row, made me think of digital sound waveforms, and this was reinforced by the strange electronic sounds. The installation is sold as an interactive social experience for strangers or friends, but well, every and any see-saw is that. It made me think that a plain see-saw could have been called an art installation a few hundred years ago. Ultimately though, any creation always reflects the personality and emotions of the creator (or group of creators, a group can have a personality and emotion); so even the coldest and most technical construction can be touching and 'be art'.
This is a strange creation. It's steel and plastic and LED lights; as steely as something from a 90s Star-Trek series, or a Paul Verhoeven film. The sounds are curious digital squalks and squelches like a robot's belchy intestinal sounds. The writing speaks of social interaction, but it feels strangely alien, something like Marvin the robot (he wasn't an android) from the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Perhaps, Wave-Field is about alienation, a seeking to connect with humanity in a digital world. Perhaps the see-saws are bones or nerves of hope.
There is probably an element of this being the result of a new type of art that is not there to satisfy the artist, or to touch an individual, but crafted for a strange amalgam of public service, practical entertainment, spectacle. Perhaps this process is the alienating force, but Wave-Field is not a warm beast, it's a buckled, silvery conduit for communication, a clonky, imperfect, social medium.
