Can art improve our lives?:an analysis of Carsten Holler’s Tate Modern installation

Carsten Holler, a Swedish artist/scientist is the latest person to have his large elaborate art work installed in the Tate Modern in London. ‘Test site’, the title of this exhibition is the latest installation part of the Unilever series. What makes this piece different from the previous installations is not only the ‘fun element’ involved but the audience interaction with the piece of work.

 The artist has installed five slides into the turbine hall of the Tate Modern, not only as a form of transportation, but as a visual and mental stimulator, for us the audience, and the designer of this piece of work. The huge ‘snake of steel’ fills the large turbine hall and the slides are at different levels in order for the participant to travel from different rooms of the gallery to the bottom of the turbine hall. The five silver slides produce an extraordinary sculptural form that is suggestive of a futuristic vision of the building’s system of circulating people. All the slides are different sizes and shapes, so sliders can test the quality of different effects. The slides all intertwine each-other and so you have the pleasure watching other sliders and their reaction to their journey.

The title ‘Test Site’ has various connotations. At first, my limited knowledge of the artist and piece led me to believe that the name connotes that the slides are there as an experiment to look into the idea of slides as a form of transportation that could be incorporated into future architectural establishments. However after reading a press release from the Tate published on the 9th October 2006 I came to realise what the title initially relates to:

“The title of the installation, Test Site, relates to both Höller’s wider interest in the application of slides as a means of human transport and his exploration of how participants might be stimulated”

The Press release goes on to say;

“The installation is, in part, an open experiment into the reception of slides by the public and the effect they have on those who use them.”

This is not the first time Carsten Holler has involved the audience in his work to look at human behaviour and perception.   He used the same process his minimalist menagerie Neon Circle (2001), which resembles a hypnotic circular cage whose bars are animated by a permanent optical movement.

From my own experiences I have come to agree with what is said in these quotes. It is an open experimentand we are both the scientists and the test subjects. If you are not sliding, you are observing the other sliders, and as well as this you are testing the idea of slides as a form of transportation.    

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This is supported by an ‘interview’ with the artist, Carsten Holler;

“I’m using the Turbine Hall as a model for the whole city for every city, in the future there could be many more in London, elsewhere” 

Although this idea has not been established in the world yet, it is an idea that Holler would love to incorporate into everyday life. An example of this would be the slides Holler made for the offices of Prada in Milan, which connects Miuccia Prada’s personal office to her car.

Holler's real interest is the theory that if these slides were incorporated into ...

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