Buried throughout a garden were magnifying lenses which revealed unexpected worlds in illuminated underground chambers.
‘Hidden Views’ was an interactive event incorporating installation and performance, for audiences of a single viewer. It took place in a private garden as part of the festival “Vogelfrei: Kunstentdeckungen in Privatgärten III,” in Darmstadt, Germany, in August/September 1999. During the seven days that ‘Hidden Views’ was performed, more than 120 audience members were led through the piece, one at a time. The experience was designed to facilitate the act of reflection; it was a meditation on mortality.
Buried throughout the garden were 5-inch, circular magnifying lenses which revealed an unexpected world in an illuminated underground chamber. The materials that I selected to put in each chamber were all found in the garden. However, with the magnification, the objects and insects appeared enormous, the colors lush, and the details exquisite. One had to kneel in order to see through the lens. Initially, the sky was reflected in the glass, but leaning closer brought one’s own face into view, and leaning even closer allowed one to see through the magnifying glass into the space underground. White light flooded the hidden world revealed.
We moved through the garden in a kind of S pattern, with the audience facing eight different directions as they kneeled to see the work. There were seven sites in the lower garden, and a final one in the upper garden. The images unfolded in a progression. The final image was located near their original entrance point.
– a small luscious red, ripe apple with green leaves still attached.
– a bouquet of brilliant purple and yellow and white flowers.
– two marred apples being invaded and devoured by an army of ants also at war with encrouching slugs and spiders.
– several faded roses, whose petals were falling off to reveal the hip and the delicate star of sepals.
– three decaying apples, covered in white mold, rotting.
– one’s own eye, with ants moving across it, reflected in a small round mirror deep in the ground, seen through the glass.
– a submerged live video image of oneself, kneeling and looking into the ground, visible through earth and glass.
– a live video image of branches moving in the wind against the blue sky, seen through vines and glass.
As performer, my primary activity was witnessing. I stood behind the audience at a distance, always watching, while each kneeled. When they looked up at me, I was quietly looking at them, ready to silently gesture towards the next location.
I became aware of how the alternating flower and apple images led people to expect flowers at the sixth location. When they encountered their own reflection, a shift in thinking occurred. Their relationship to the piece had changed, and now they too were implicated in the cycle of decay. This was underscored by next seeing the full image of their kneeling body underground. It was with these two images that the most unpredictable responses happened, ranging from laughter to complete stillness.
The act of kneeling, and kneeling eight times in order to see a piece, is unusual. It generates a complex relationship not only to the artwork, but, in this case, with the artist of the work. Taking the physical position of kneeling triggers associations concerning issues of power and powerlessness, be they political, religious, or intimate. Those dynamics permeated the experience, adding another layer of significance to the private contemplation of mortality.
