Elevator

“Conceptually, Elevator indented to bring anger from the behavioural periphery to the centre of the gallery as an aesthetic elevated emotion”

artist (Technoetic Arts, Vol. 15 (2), 2017: 96)

“An Eskimo custom offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape. The point where the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage”

Lucy Lippard (1983, in Solnit, 2001: 6-8)

Concept

Elevator is an interactive audiovisual installation associated with the philosophy of emotions and human anger. The installation merges philosophical and technological layers by bringing human anger under the aesthetic and creative lenses. Conceived by the artist on 2008 as a series of ongoing artworks, Elevator forms a site-specific artwork at the radical intersections of installation art, interactive art, video art and practice-based research; highlighting immersive, interactive and sensory aspects of aesthetic experience. Elevator focuses on a spatialisation of an extreme emotion by creative an immersive situation. Anger can be thought of as a kind of alchemy. The primitive turns into something layered; embodied, philosophical, spiritual and aesthetic. Emotion needs space; needs an aesthetic gesture; extended into social and cultural fields.

Description

Interactive installation which provokes, converts, visualises anger to aesthetic result

Technical: audiovisual projections, interaction, algorithmic process, video sculpture

Duration: 6-8’ (loop)

Year: 2008-2009

Credits

Concept – Creation: Bill Psarras

Programming: Prof. Andreas Floros (Ionian University), Dr. Kostas Drosos (Tampere University of Technology)

Exhibition

The work has been exhibited only once (May 2009, Ionian University). Other performative/technological forms of Elevator concept are under development

Arts-based research (2008-2009)

The work constituted Bill Psarras’ integrated MA thesis (arts-based research) at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of Ionian University (2008-2009). it was also presented as a paper along with Prof. Andreas Floros and Marianne Strapatsakis at the AES International Convention in Munich (Germany, 2009). A more recent publication of the author re anger, emotions and performative/spatial practices includes The Aesthetics of Anger: Spatializing emotions through intermedia practices (Technoetic Arts 15 (2), 2017)