Through the lens of Situationism and the Dérive
The effect of Harris’ sculptures depends on their setting and lack of formal location. The city sidewalks are public and accessible to anyone. They are thoroughfares.
Situationist International, a group "founded in 1957 by artists and writers representing various avant-garde organizations," was a group focused on blurring the line between art and life by treating experiences as they would encounter artworks. The Situationists believed that the "stifling functionalism of post-war urbanism, as seen especially in the autocratic housing schemes built around Paris and other cities" was a force that "curbed the individual's creative capacities," and therefore, they would design new city plans that fostered "free use and transformation of the urban environment" - a "unitary urbanism" (Andreotti, 7).
In line with this way of experiencing art, the inflatable sculptures serve as a trigger to snap pedestrians out of their imperceptive ways and in a way force the passerby to transform into an observer in a dérive-minded state. Passersby may live in rooms and offices in the city, but may still not actually wrap their heads around the idea of the city as an entity in itself, or experience the sidewalk as something other than a thoroughfare. The sculptures are the trigger that snaps them into a different way of looking at things - as art, or a spectacle to be admired and contemplated, not just a fixture of the landscape. Looking critically at one’s surroundings and how components interact, and also looking at one’s surroundings in a new light (what is not there; the context; the shape of voids) is a desired result.
Situationist International, a group "founded in 1957 by artists and writers representing various avant-garde organizations," was a group focused on blurring the line between art and life by treating experiences as they would encounter artworks. The Situationists believed that the "stifling functionalism of post-war urbanism, as seen especially in the autocratic housing schemes built around Paris and other cities" was a force that "curbed the individual's creative capacities," and therefore, they would design new city plans that fostered "free use and transformation of the urban environment" - a "unitary urbanism" (Andreotti, 7).
Ivan Chtcheglov, under the penname Gilles Ivain, wrote in Formula for a New City on how the city itself is the total artwork (Gray, 8). The Situationist idea of the dérive, or the practice of moving through a city as experiential art, is central to understanding the artistic power of the sculptures by Harris.
Dérive means to “divert water” but the word dériver means to “drift” (Andreotti, 60). The situationists define the term as “a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of transient passage through varied ambiances. Also used to designate a specific period of continuous deriving” (Andreotti, 69). In a dérive, an individual or pair will "drop their usual motives for movement and action...and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there" (Andreotti, 22)
In line with this way of experiencing art, the inflatable sculptures serve as a trigger to snap pedestrians out of their imperceptive ways and in a way force the passerby to transform into an observer in a dérive-minded state. Passersby may live in rooms and offices in the city, but may still not actually wrap their heads around the idea of the city as an entity in itself, or experience the sidewalk as something other than a thoroughfare. The sculptures are the trigger that snaps them into a different way of looking at things - as art, or a spectacle to be admired and contemplated, not just a fixture of the landscape. Looking critically at one’s surroundings and how components interact, and also looking at one’s surroundings in a new light (what is not there; the context; the shape of voids) is a desired result.
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