What if inanimate objects became cognitive beings? What if they had their own stories, their own view of the world, sometimes even their own language, unfolding in the most unlikely of dialogues? What if they could draw our attention to those irregularities, discrepancies, and features of a space that usually escape our perception?
Michael Ray-Von’s work In Excess of Playtime (2) examines the economics of attention and our mental engagement with spatial, visual, and auditory information, by means of a programmed light source. What ultimately becomes a disembodied performance is made possible by a unique software interface, developed by the artist for automating stage lighting effects. We are able to follow a wandering beam of light, a tight moving-head spotlight that is synchronized with an audio play, as it settles on different objects and channels our attention to architectural features or specific interventions. Each flicker of light corresponds to the rhythm of the uttered words, each flicker of light emphasizes that the artist has given them an active role in his play. Over the course of ten minutes, we encounter different characters whose conversations, thoughts and puns take us both into an ancient past and a distant future.
The expansive installation moves within a clearly set framework, guiding our attention according to the script. Our bodies align with the spotlight, our heads lift and lower – we seem to become a corporeal extension of the software-driven beam. This offers the inherent potential to discover inconspicuous sites within the gallery that we tend to overlook, sites not usually included in what we consider meriting artistic attention. Yet, this potential concurrently implies its own precarious reversal: as the play evolves, other areas of the space elude our perception, as we have become accustomed to following the piece’s storylines and "instructions", delivered asperformative art forms, without questioning them as they unfold.
As information has grown increasingly abundant, human attention has become a scarcity, a form of currency that everyone is fighting over: attention is not simply given, but has become a commodity. Attention needs to be generated, attributed, and managed. But if attention is captured somewhere, it is absent elsewhere. Beyond this dichotomy, Michael Ray-Von plays with ways to reframe attention, showcasing its fluidity and adaptability. Assigning agency to inanimate objects by directing our attention to them, they become available to us. Each flicker of light asserts that the objects are worthy of our attention, time, and care. Each flicker of light offers us a shift in perspective, and ultimately an opportunity for social reconfiguration.
Translation: Plattform team
Voices of the artist and Temra Pavlovic, music by Laura Schenk, mounting devices by Finn Curry.
Thanks to Becket MWN for work on the vocal recording.
Photo credits: Guadalupe Ruiz