SachsSculpture

shsachs@smcm.edu

Project 2- Kinetics and Interactiviy
ANALYSIS

The term kinetic art does not just apply to the art of people like Bruce Nauman and Claire Watkins, it refers to any art that is meant to interact in some way with its environment and/or audience. Interactive art reaches out and engages real people and real space. It cannot exist without an audience. It is difficult for me to grasp the idea of non-kinetic art because I cannot personally understand why anyone would want to create art that did not engage others.

Art is a way to express yourself and if other people can’t relate to or connect with your art, then what really is the point? I know that this is just the opinion of a person who has grown up in the twentieth century, but I don’t believe that any artist in any period would have been satisfied knowing that their art existed only in itself with no interaction with the outside world. Baden wants his work to help us see the potential of art’s intersection with life and people. It wouldn’t be very effective up on a pedestal in a museum where no one could touch it and interact with it in the way that Baden intended.

People exist in cities, in parks, in the streets, in the country. Life doesn’t happen in white walled galleries and art doesn’t have to either. We are constantly forced to interact with man-made things in our daily lives; it’s what we do with the majority of our time now that I think about it. Art comes from human life and human experience and what better place is there to exhibit this art then in places where humans are actually living. What better way is there for interactive art to force people to interact with it?