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Olafur Eliasson, The social practice and intervention of Art Production
The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
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Nowadays we can find the critical opinion of public and sociality is increasing. Art really has great potential when it comes to forging connections and creating social awareness and interaction. One of the great resources that art and the cultural sector share is that they speak to people in an inclusive way. They creative shared environments, where differences of opinion are not only tolerated, but also accepted and encouraged. It is important to consider correlation between arts and social politics and more human beings under the condition of complicated social issues. This paper focuses on how cultural strategy and communication of arts can present models for our society through the art of Olafur Eliasson. Olafur Eliasson shifts our focus from the art objects itself to the very experience of seeing. His public art, site-specifics art, represents the conversation with observers and is targeted directly at the viewer, calling for a response. He always shows his methods openly, and the work's construction always remains clear to the viewer. Since his early works, Eliasson has investigated the countless possibilities offered by the reactions of the human eye, including the phenomenon of the after-image. Also his approach might be defined as experimental, process-oriented and double perspective. In keeping with his basic approach to questions of space, he has an deep interest in correlation within work, viewer and display space. Eliasson's art as a social practice explains the model how to understand the social responsibility of arts and interact with world. He shows the new methode of spaces experiment through the esthetic synthesis of nature and culture, society and arts. Eliasson's works focus on human, itself and futhermore the critical role and responsibility of individual observer. He tries to make the spectator the exhibited part and pretends that the architecture and the situation are the subject. It's like a reversal of subject and object. Ultimately, he is concerned with social change, political and ecological participation. Especially, the work of <Your rainbow panorama> represents Eliasson's interest of relationship between city and individual. The rainbow colours used in the work bring about a multiplicity of perceptual experiences that emerge from the inextricable union of body and mind. Depending on how fast or slowly they walk, each visitor will have a different experience of the surrounding cityscape. It can function as a tool through which visitors can co-produce their own colour movie of their surroundings and have an experience of their sensory engagement. This work shows that Eliasson does not view a work of art as static, but as a thing in constant motion, in an ongoing and unfinished process of coming into being that both its surroundings and the viewer exert an influence over. The relationship between individual experience and the social context is crucial for Eliasson. Olafur Eliasson worked a lot with the sociologist Bruno Latour, who presented great arguments for introducing intentionality into objects and introduced this notion of interobjectivity. Latour's argument is to exclude subjectivity and focus on objects as agents, what he calls the actor–network theory. According to Bruno Latour, it is an important to focus on engagement and negotiation rather than the question of universal principle about a thing. With a wealth of references ranging from nature to science, Eliasson's art speaks a democratic language that goes beyond the cultural, political and social barriers. According to Eliasson, it is through constant negotiation that we are able to keep any system open and flexible. Actually he thinks every structure should have a little parliament. His <The parliament of reality> is conceived as a site for exchange of opinion and for friction –through friction we are able to cast a critical and evaluative glances at ourselves and our surroundings. Eliasson hope that <The parliament of reality> reinforces this contractual relationship between thing and viewer. Eliasson believes that in order to achieve a challenging engagement with art that avoids the manipulation of the viewer, every part of the construction behind the presentation of art must be made a transparent part of that presentation. His work brings about situations that invite us to challenge, renegotiate, and reinterpret our understanding of the society and the world. This art can finally achieve both its social function and make the relationship with time with which it is engaged. The idea of participation he thinks just is't in the sense of physically working together, but more in terms of its ethical potential. It is about defining a different understanding of subjectivity. In Eliasson's works, he shows to the idea of inviting people to engage more deeply with art and a way to make a positive impact on society.
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