An Experiment

Shedding light - of a different kind?

As a way of getting to know a new friend by exploring our different ways of perceiving we went to see UNTIL by Nick Cave - 'a massive immersive installation' [which includes] 'stark images, referencing complex issues of gun violence, racial profiling and gender politics that currently divide the United States of America, and the extension of these matters in communities around the world'.


I'd read the blurb ahead of time and researched the artist online so was primed to see the 'political impetus' behind the work.  Not easy, even when so primed.  But then I'm prone to political blindness.


Much more interesting was the discovery in conversation that this new friend had never read any of the background even after going to see the exhibit three times.  So the politics of the thing was entirely invisible to her until we popped back in for a second look.  


I was struck by how much joy she felt in the purely sensual experience unimpeded by any intellectual ideas.  And I wondered if those perceptual filters had been developed by being born in Samoa and spending her first years around the Pacific Islands.


An unanswerable question.  We'll go to see something else that appeals to her and I'll avoid all foreknowledge to see if I am able to perceive more directly, with fewer concepts in the way.


Predictably I was drawn to the most shiny element in the room!  Blipped here.  

I'll post another couple of views on the preceding couple of days.
Here and here.
Spot the gun in one of them.