Food For Thought (artwork)
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| Food For Thought | |||||||||||
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| Artist | Matthew McCaslin | ||||||||||
| Year | 1996 | ||||||||||
| Medium | Installation | ||||||||||
| Movement | Postpostmodernism | ||||||||||
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Food For Thought is a 1996 art installation by American artist Matthew McCaslin, which he also described as a "virtual disease".
Basics[edit]
Thirty TV-sets and six video players streaming cows grazing on grass were to be placed on square bales of straw on the third floor of the barn at the Wanås Sculpture Park.[1][2] The cows appear in close-up as large, moving bodies, on the TV-sets that were knocked over juxtapositioned left, right, and upside down.[1][2]
Interpretation[edit]
As in all of McCaslin's work humor is an important constituent but there's also a critique of today's consumer society.[1][2][3] The installation is equally much about television as a conveyor of information as about life in the country.[1][2]
Pathology[edit]
Food For Thought could further be a sort of virtual edition of a mad cow disease affecting all living things in a sort of mass psychosis devoid of pain.[1]
It could then be stated that the cows is trapped in a sort of virtual reality highlighting life conditions that, albeit a simulated reality, manifests itself as not that much of a difference to the cows usual life.[1]
In an ironic twist every art exhibitioneer then gets infected by this disease upon evaluating the piece but to no other avail than to experiencing art.[1]
Interpreting the artwork as site-specific then leads to this experience to be part of the infection over time as the artwork bridge over to a permanent piece albeit the cows existence in a temporary context.[1][4]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h Wachtmeister, Marika (2001). Konsten på Wanås Art at Wanås. Byggförlaget Kultur. p. 128. ISBN 91-7988-212-9.
- ^ a b c d Hoist-Ekström, Måns (October 1996). "Food for Thought". Wanas Sculpture Magazine.
- ^ Protzman, Ferdinand (15 January 1998). "Plugged In To The Culture". Washington Post.
- ^ Norman, Malin. "Wanås Konst: Contemporary art, nature and history meet in Wanås". ScanMagazine.co.uk.