|
 |
 |
General Information |
 |
|
| Artist |
|
Louise K. Wilson |
|
| Title |
|
Terra Firma, 1996 |
|
| Copyright |
|
Andy Lock (installation views) Louise K Wilson (video still images) |
|
| Status |
|
Realized |
|
| Date of Initiation |
|
--/--/1994 |
|
| Date of Realization |
|
--/--/1996 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Technical Description
J.G. Ballard perceives the state of humans in weightlessness as “ ‘a forced return to infantile dependency’ ”(1) in which “ ‘primitive stages in the growth of our nervous systems before the development of our sense of balance and upright posture’ ”(2) are recapitulated. Nausea, or motion sickness, is a nasty by-product.
’Terra Firma’ is one in a series of installations for which Louise K Wilson gathered scientific data and documentation of her participation in a research project: “In late 1994 whilst living in Montreal I took part in a week-long motion sickness study in the Aerospace Medical Research Unit of McGill University”(3). This ongoing study “explores the adaptation of the human body for manned space flight”(4).
Wilson volunteered to undertake a series of movements in the laboratory where sometimes volunteers may be spun around in a mechanised chair in order that the inertia barrier might be broken (5). Her “eye, head and body movements were electronically monitored with … electrodes (EOG) during the prescribed ‘provocative, self-generated movements’ intended to provoke nausea”(6); and her neck was placed in a brace so that “ ‘the effect of complete neck immobilization on gaze control’ ”(7) could be observed. At the end, Wilson was “allowed a copy of the grainy black and white video footage”(8) made of herself, which she was to use as a focal point of ‘Terra Firma’.
McGill University finally had their studies performed in the destined zero gravity environment, when in the summer of 1996 the crew on the space shuttle Columbia, on mission STS-78 from Kennedy Space Center, performed the Torso Rotation Experiment (E410-TRE) (9). Measurements were made of “ ‘how the vestibular apparatus or inner ear adapts to the weightless environment’ “(10) by monitoring “ ‘eye, head and torso movements of flight crew members during normal on-orbit activities for evidence of egocentric motor strategies – concentration on a body frame of reference rather than the external world’ “(11). For her installation, Wilson obtained the STS-78 post-flight presentation video from NASA/JSC Media Services Corporation (1996).
‘Terra Firma’ was “made for the centre sculpture court of the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, as part of ROOT 96”(12). It is composed of a free-standing wooden staircase, three television sets, headphones, videos, sound recordings, written documents … and involved visitors. It has been shown in ‘Crafting Space’, an exhibition at Smart Project Space Amsterdam, Holland (June/July 2002) and at Ferens Art Gallery Hull, England (October 1996). ‘Abulia’, and earlier version of ‘Terra Firma’, was shown at Optica Gallery Montreal, Canada (February 1996).
Text by Carlotta Graedel Matthäi; quotations from: (1) J.G.Ballard: The Atrocity Exhibition (1993) quoted in: Louise K Wilson: “Stories from the Research Labs”, in: Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 4:2 1999, p.96; (2) ibid.; (3) ibid., p.95; (4) Alice Smits: ‘Crafting Space’, SMART Papers. Amsterdam, NL: SMART Project Space, 1.6.-7.7.2002, p.8; (5) see: Wilson in: Angelaki 1999, p.95; (6) ibid.; (7) ibid.; (8) ibid.; (9) see: ibid., p.96; (10) Bob Thirsk, astronaut, from STS-78 Post Flight Video (1996) quoted by Wilson in: Angelaki 1999, p.96; (11) quoted from: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/spacelab/lms/overview/jsc.html by Wilson in: Angelaki 1999, p.96; (12) Louise K Wilson: Email sent to Carlotta Graedel Matthäi, 31.07.2003.
Artistic Description
For the participatory installation ‘Terra Firma’ a faux laboratory theatre is staged with the visual, oral and written documentation from the motion sickness experiment in which Louise K Wilson had participated at the Aerospace Medicine Research Unit at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in 1994.
The viewer must climb a freestanding wooden staircase in order to reach a set of headphones and listen to the “instructions and sound cues given by the experimenter”(1). At the same time two facing television sets show the indistinct light-intensified video footage of the experiment, in which Wilson, both artist and voluntary subject in one, is perceived as “an indistinct and disorientated subject – swaying and rotating in the dark”(2). Wilson explains that:
“The video signal alternate[s] approximately every second between the two sets by means of a switching mechanism. The audio track … similarly alternate[s] between the right/left channels on the headphones. Therefore, in order to view the video documentation, the viewer ha[s] to undertake self-generated movements, akin to those in the motion sickness study”(3).
At the base of the staircase the viewer is given the opportunity to study a folder containing “a signed consent form, an interview with the researcher, details of the experimental protocols and related documents”(4).
A further, smaller monitor shows the slow motion NASA video documentation “of astronauts undertaking the same motion sickness study”(5) on the space shuttle Columbia in 1996. The accompanying soundtrack “is of an American male describing his participation in an isolation experiment conducted by NASA”(6).
Alice Smits sums up Louise K Wilson’s installation as “taking as its starting point the testing of volunteer human subjects in scientific research”(7) and her interpretation is that “the viewer is invited to consider the role of the tested subject [in this case Wilson and the astronaut] as performative”(8).
Text by Carlotta Graedel Matthäi; quotations from: (1) Louise K Wilson: Email sent to Carlotta Graedel Matthäi, 31.07.2003; (2) Louise K Wilson: “Stories from the Research Labs”, in: Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 4:2 1999, p.95; (3) Wilson Email 31.07.2003; (4) Alice Smits: ‘Crafting Space’, SMART Papers. Amsterdam, NL: SMART Project Space, 1.6.-7.7.2002, p.8; (5) Wilson Email 31.07.2003; (6) Smits, p.8; (7) ibid.; (8) ibid.
Whereabouts of Work
Contact: Louise K Wilson
Technique
- Installation
- Performance
- Video
Category
|
Wilson
