- Venue
- Nottingham Trent
- Location
- East Midlands
Michel Foucault once spoke of how he compared his historical approach to archaeology, evoking the excavation and revelation of what has been superseded and concealed[1]. The title ‘The Impossible Prison' is borrowed from Foucault's thoughts on imprisonment and madness, situated within a very literal archaeology of punishment; the cells of an abandoned prison beneath the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham. The police Station was deserted in 1985, only now, its once empty cells hold within them installations from some of the most influential artists of their time, spanning disciplines from the early video work of Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci, to the modern sculpture of Tatiana Trouvé. Each artist independently evokes the concerns of incarceration, control and surveillance that Foucault so relentlessly voiced.
It is important to realise that when entering a site-specific art project such as this, which holds within it so many physical and psychological reminders of elapsed suffering and confinement, that the art is very much guided by the space, and if removed may not be so resonant. But from the moment I walked into the space the atmosphere clutched at my throat with its cold and consuming fingertips and the combination of the art and history of the building allowed for the space to engulf me. I cannot deny that this exhibition gave more to me in terms of the atmospheric emotion and relationship with the work than I had ever imagined it would. But at times I wondered whether I was being naively tempted to find success in work that I perhaps wouldn't if it was in a gallery. I was there for one reason and that was to view the work of Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman, yet somehow the space became equally important to me and distracted me for a time.
Nauman and Acconci appeared alone on their screens in psychologically intense and oppressive empty spaces. The first ‘cell' I entered was projecting Nauman's videos ‘walking in an exaggerated manner around the perimeter of a sqaure' (1967) and ‘violin tuned D E A D' (1968) alternating on the wall. The cell was left in its original condition, covered in carved out names, old confessions, declarations of love, of hate; "I DID IT FOR ANARCHY" to name just one. This space was so complementary to the work it was quite remarkable, as Nauman paced around a square on the wall ahead of me and plucked at a flatly tuned violin I felt so detached from the world it was as if I was going insane, like that of a prisoner in a cell, all alone, pacing perhaps. I felt Nauman testing the physical and mental endurance of both himself and the viewer, and by doing so, he initiated a new relationship between the work of art and the audience. It made me feel as though I was hostage to his performance, doomed to watch his endless and repetitive pacing made audibly punishing by the violin tuned ‘D E A D'. Like Nauman's installation ‘Performance Corridor' (1968-70) he succeeded to re-create an incredibly claustrophobic enclosure, which heightened my awareness of the space I was occupying. This reassured me that the success of the situation of this video was a deliberate and considered element that was complemented by the cell, but not owned by it.
Around the corner from Nauman's ‘cell' is where I encountered Acconci's first video ‘Centers' (1971) mounted on a wall on a flat-screened monitor. Here he uses the TV screen as a mirror, pointing away from himself at an outside viewer. I have viewed this video before, but in this situation and in the state of mind I had developed since entering the prison walls; the intimacy seemed to add a heightened emphasis on Acconci's ‘fight' against exhaustion. At the other side of the wall was another of Acconci's early videos ‘Visions of Disappearance' (1973) which assumed a similar position and height, only this time the monitor was occupying a cell, and was in the corner, as if placed in such a way that it could be missed. I felt compelled to move closer to the screen and by doing so, forced myself to seclude into another claustrophobic space within an already confined room.
Near the entrance of the prison, placed intimately in one of the inmate visiting booths was the third video of Acconci's titled ‘Face-Off' (1972). This was unarguably the installation that tantalized me more than any other. It had an incredibly personal relationship with the space. The screen was opposite me, on the other side of the glass; facing me as though it were a loved one or friend who I could not touch, only hear. I became the sole individual intended to view the hidden, darkest desires of Acconci. It was as though I was witnessing the endless ramblings of a man gone mad through confinement. The exhausting performance of Acconci trying to obscure his most deep and sexually intimate secrets was propelled through the speaking vents beneath the glass, mimicking a sad reality. The screen acted as a sculpture, replacing the man who could be sitting before me. I felt compelled to lean closer to the vent, so I could hear properly what he was saying, he was encouraging me to respond to his performance, to be part of it. And he was succeeding, because for a while, I felt sorry for him.
Like so many times before, Acconci manages to use the camera as an extension of his body, replacing his actual presence with that of a recording. The recorded act is more important than the live; the camera becomes the witness. And we become witness to the camera. The German literary critic Benjamin Walter once asked; "Is the performers ‘aura' tied to his presence" [2], and this I believe is a very interesting concept to consider when responding to video art. But, also a question that Acconci and Nauman, like many other successful ‘action artists' have revealed, has only one answer; if you allow the space to replace all that is missing from the live act, and use the screen (or whatever shape the video might assume) as an extension of what is physically absent, then a whole new ‘aura' is created, one that is perhaps more powerful than the original, one that asserts a different kind of presence all together, a radical presence.
[1] Michel Foucoult, with Jean- Pierre Barou and Michelle Perrot, The Eye Of Power (1977) Bentham J, La Panoptique, Pierre Belfront, Paris
[2] Quote by Benjamin W, used in MULTI-MEDIA Video Installation Performance, Kaye N, (2007) Routledege, Oxon (an excerpt from The Work Of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Benjamin W, Illuminations (1992 [1936])
