Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

In 2016 the New Museum presented “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest,” a thirty-year retrospective of Rist’s work that spanned the entire three gallery floors of the museum. Rist’s work occupies multiple spaces, including one in the museum and one on Instagram. I investigate the idea of space and argue that modern and digitally-enabled spectators move about spaces – digital and gallery – differently than historic museum-goers. Rist’s work plays with the idea of putting people inside a screen inside a gallery, transforming the passive viewer into an activated spectator. When photographed by smartphone-enabled spectators, Rist’s work inspires a new generation of museum curators that create a new exhibition space online. The modern museum visitor is usually wielding a phone and capturing miniature versions of the art right there in the exhibition. By Rist’s permission, the visitor can choose to see the exhibition through the lens of their phone. Could this be a sort of intentional deeper digital engagement? The images taken in the exhibition live on Instagram under a hashtag or a geotag that lets the viewer know where the photo was taken. A geotag becomes a space online, the digital equivalent of the museum space. The modern smartphone-wielding patron impacts the exhibit, both in physical co-presence, and in the ways their Instagrammed images represent, translate, and re-imagine that exhibit in the digital space of social media. This investigation considers the possible implications of creating art that can function in both the digital and gallery spaces.