Curating gap
What curatorial discourse ignores or forgets is the place and experience of the audience, and the concerns facing curatorial practice in terms of how to (re)define artistic experience in relation to political issues, social practices and the production of new forms of knowledge are often theatrical in nature. Theatrical cues ‘help the audience to engage fully with their sense of reason and intelligence’. When seeing something that has already happened, one becomes more attentive to the sensory impact of the eye and the field of vision (Eckersall & Ferdman, 2021).
TYPE: PHYSICAL INTERCTIVE EXHIBITION
The exhibition—in this expanded, extended sense—works, above all, to shape its audience’s experience and take its audience through a journey of understanding that unfolds as a guided yet open-weave pattern of affective insights, each triggered by looking, that accumulates until the audience has understood the curator’s insight and, hopefully, arrived at insights previously unthought by both (Smith, 2012).
“Interactive art is an opportunity for self-discovery; it is an invitation to explore one’s own body in an interactive process”(Simanowski, 2011).
Interactive art creates spaces and moments that open up dialogue. Much of this dialogue is conceived of as an embodied dialogue, usually with other interactors, but also with oneself. Interactive art is conceptualised as a place to get in touch with one’s own body, to connect with an inner dialogue in a way that is independent of the limitations and inner dialogues instilled and developed over the years(Simanowski, 2011).
References:
Eckersall, P. & Ferdman, B. (eds.) (2021) Curating dramaturgies : how dramaturgy and curating are intersecting in the contemporary arts / edited by Peter Eckersall and Bertie Ferdman. London: Routledge.
Simanowski, Roberto. (2011) Digital art and meaning : reading kinetic poetry, text machines, mapping art, and interactive installations / Roberto Simanowski. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, T. (Terry E.) (2012) Thinking contemporary curating. Second edition.. New York, NY, Independent Curators International.
