{"id":4946,"date":"2017-05-01T07:29:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T07:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumen.club\/?p=4946"},"modified":"2017-05-01T07:29:01","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T07:29:01","slug":"enjoy-the-silence-doug-wheelers-psad-synthetic-desert-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/enjoy-the-silence-doug-wheelers-psad-synthetic-desert-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Enjoy the Silence \u2013 Doug Wheeler\u2019s PSAD Synthetic Desert III"},"content":{"rendered":"

A late career artist known for sparse installations where visitors confront the ethereal beauty of light, Doug Wheeler considers \u2018perception\u2019 his medium. This opinion is driven home with particular clarity in PSAD Synthetic Desert III<\/em>, a recently opened exhibition at NYC\u2019s Guggenheim Museum that brings an unrealized 1968 installation idea to life \u2014 and takes advantage of the gains that have been made in architectural acoustics and materials in the (almost) half-century that has elapsed since he conceived the work through drawing. This spatial environment offers visitors the chance to sit in a (semi) anechoic chamber and stare out into a quasi-horizon that gives the impression of empty space \u2013 like a horizon stretching into the distance. Making themselves comfortable on a tiny platform that juts out over a field of triangular sound-dampening baffles, visitors have little to do but sit and soak up the silence.<\/p>\n

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\n\u2191 The blueprint: Wheeler\u2019s 1971 ink drawing configured PSAD Synthetic Desert III<\/em> spatially \u2013 forty-six years later, the vision is realized<\/small><\/p>\n

Wheeler cites his time spent in the deserts of northern Arizona as the inspiration for this environment, and it was realized as part of the Panza Collection Initiative<\/a>, an ongoing study devoted to questions around fabrication and installation of minimal, post-minimal, and conceptual art that has reviewed and revived work by noted minimalists including Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman and others. The venture\u2019s mandate ensures \u201cmaterial integrity, historical context, and conceptual terms\u201d of works that are executed under it are realized to their full potential; for Synthetic Desert<\/em> this saw Wheeler work in collaboration with Raj Patel and Joseph Digerness of the engineering firm Arup to get the acoustic qualities right, or as \u2018right\u2019 (read: silent) as possible.<\/p>\n

For the Guggenheim installation \u2026 the artist\u2019s ambition is to produce a hermetic environment based on a radical reduction of optical and acoustical sensation. To protect the quality of visitor experience, which achieves its fullest potential only with as few extraneous sounds and distractions as possible, each visitation group for Synthetic Desert<\/em> will be limited to five people. A timed ticket that allows visitors to spend either ten or twenty minutes in the gallery is required.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would be romantic if the fact you have to book an appointment to spend time in the space spoke to the seriousness with which visitors arrived in it, but really its just small. Just the same, it is encouraging you don\u2019t have to encounter Synthetic Desert<\/em> alone, as contemplating the void is best enjoyed with a few trusted friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III\u201d<\/a> is up at NYC\u2019s Guggenheim through August 2nd<\/em>
\nAll images courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation \/ photos by David Heald<\/em><\/p>\n

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A late career artist known for sparse installations where visitors confront the ethereal beauty of light, Doug Wheeler considers \u2018perception\u2019 his medium. This opinion is driven home with particular clarity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[24,498,16,71,252,102,745,99,746,747,151,19,35,216,153,20,116,748,749,750,568,22,63,666,23,37,38,44,135,277,513,492,227,716],"class_list":["post-4946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-av-projects","category-interactive-technologies","tag-24","tag-av-perfomnce","tag-av-project","tag-art","tag-art-performance","tag-artist","tag-desert-iii","tag-digital-art","tag-doug-wheeler","tag-enjoy","tag-interactive-art","tag-lumen","tag-magazine","tag-projection","tag-projection-art","tag-projection-mapping","tag-projection-show","tag-psad","tag-silence","tag-synthetic","tag-video","tag-video-art","tag-video-mapping","tag-visual","tag-visual-art","tag-visuals","tag-vj","tag-vj-art","tag-vj-artist","tag-vj-clips","tag-vj-community","tag-vj-companies","tag-vj-contest","tag-vjmag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frontfx.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}