Daniel Arsham’s 2019 retrospective exhibition, Connecting Time , was a multifaceted showcase of his many artistic disciplines. Through a series of experiential installations, visitors were taken through immersive spaces that subvert the norm
and shake the foundations of the familiar. None more so, perhaps, that the ‘Calcified Room’ that rendered an innocuous living room into a post-apocalyptic suspension of time and reality, unnerving and engaging in equal measure.
Art Installations
Art installations were born to create intimacy between the artist and the voyeur; they are often temporary and allow us an insight into the creative realm of the artist. The space often allows the spectator to move around the environment, but what happens in a claustrophic exhibition? Why does the artist want their audience to feel uncomfortable?
Haroon Mirza’s various installations under the name, reality is somehow what we expect it to be , were viewed on social media platforms as an Instagram dream. The rooms filled with a soft LED glow and geometric foam shapes that were satisfyingly crisp. However, upon entering an anechoic chamber - a space in which neither light nor sound is reflected - a high-pitched noise was played whilst a ring light pulsated, the combination of which gave visitors the impression of being trapped in a physical representation of a migraine. Mirza lured his captive audience in through sharing and reposting his multi-sensory installation, in some way cheating his audience of the calm experience they were anticipating.
Haroon Mirza, reality is somehow what we expect it to be , 2018, Ikon. Courtesy the artist and Ikon.
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FINE ART COLLECTOR AUTUMN2019 9
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