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Installation Art -describes an artistic genre of site-specific, three-dimensional works designed to transform a viewer's perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however the boundaries between these terms overlap.


Installation art uses three dimensional architectural or open natural spaces to impact the viewer's perception of space


Gesamtkunstwerk- This is a German word used to describe art that uses many forms of art to do so. The idea is that using this method the art is more complete.

Sense- The meaning of things as present in the immediate experience usually invoking the use of the faculties: sight, hearing smell, taste, or touch. “by which humans and animals perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body.”-dictionary.com important to the definition of sense is that it is information or experience that comes from outside of the body. In Art of Experience, the interaction with the organism with its environment leads to experience which is the reward of the interaction.” Over and over again, John Dwey talks about the specific way of understanding that comes from interaction, not separation, with the stimulus of the environment.

Fine art-removed from common life. expensive materials developed for pleasing aesthetics of the senses. Art that has reached a level in skill execution of rendering. Uncommon, special, not made out of everyday materials.




Installation art uses the architectural repetitive space that the viewer is in, bringing the viewers into the art, pulling them inside. Often, the installation piece considers and includes the environment: architecture, natural outdoor surroundings, video, music, sound, light, and texture. It is not a new medium but in the middle of the 20th century is when modern use and terminology began. Gothic churches are an example of old installation art. Colored glass was used to tell stories while the natural light from outdoors made those pictures shimmer with spiritual illumination. The architecture of these buildings, whose structural science is hidden seem to b held together by the supernatural forces not by structural science, the eyes drawn up
as the sprit contemplates spiritual majesty.

The question that I want to ask is “How installations pieces are help us experience art differently than other kinds of art?” How does installation art as a artistic medium, different? Does it provide a more complete “experience” for the audience? This question will help us understand how and why installations are chosen as a mediun and it will help determine their validity. To answer this question I will look at images from Marcel decamp and Ilya Kabokov, 10 characters: The man who flew into Space from his Apartment,1988, Kurt Schwitters, Mezbaou, 1919-37 and I will construct my own installation piece that I hope will achieve certain effects with it.

II "notes"
Process of creation and of experience of art and why “fine art” needed to be re-married to life as experience through the re-introduction of “installation art” medium. Discuss “Art as Experience” and pull in quotes.

II "notes"
Body-Artist piece one, body-Artist piece two and three



My installation piece that I am composing for this class is site specific. It will be Inside of Dean’s, next door to Notsouoh, on 314 Main Street. Inside of Dean’s hidden in the corner, sits an old elevator. The elevator has historical significance that is mostly unrecognized; it is the 3rdoldest elevator in the nation, and it is the oldest elevator in the city. It no longer works, but it still has its function, as a conversation piece and a tiny hideaway, to tuck into, while patronizing the bar.
I have 4 fluorescent lights, covered with aqua blue green gel filters that I am going to install at the top of the elevator. Behind the iron elevator walls, I am going to install speakers to play elevator music. The musicians that I hope to use are local acts, Josiah Gabriel and Roger Sellers and a national act, Prince Rama. Their music if of the ambient noise genre. On the table inside the elevator, I am going to place a mirror with a catholic labyrinth/ Buddhist Mandela overlay and bottles of colored sand with straws available to fill in the outline of the Mandela with sand. The Tibetan Buddhists create Mandelas, symbols of conscienceness with the intention to destroy, as a form of meditation. Catholics/ Christians, walk the labyth as a form of prayer and meditation on spirtual matters. Prayer and meditation are same accept while meditation serves to calm the body and mind prayer serves to calm the body and the mind but it also communication with God.

The effect that I hope to create with this space is: to create a private womb like reality, escape chamber that with a sensory washing out that I hope will relax and hone focus to that of a meditative creative flow with no pressure to perform or create. I want the effect to be great but unrecognized. I want a tiny sphere of enchantment, an escape from the world, an envelope away from the debauchery of the bar and from the larger influence of Notsouh, which itself is a installation piece maintained by Jim Pirtle. I want to create a atmosphere that encourages the mental state of focused, creative flow.