Review Of There/Here

In the art work called “There/here” by the artist Germaine Koh and Gordon Hicks, physically there is only two doors which have been linked together using technology. A door is an object that allows people to enter or exit when open, and denies enter or exit when closed while it is closed the door gives a sense of security and safety. While in this work these functions of the doors have been warped, as these doors are in the centre of the room with no connections to the wall or objects, they just stand there in their frames. This removes all their functions and leaves them as basic levers. This doors have a digital element to them as both doors have become synchronised with each other, through the internet, this means what ever you do to one door occurs to the other and vice versa. This arrangement creates a heterotopia with in the digital aspect, a heterotopia is a concept of space that function in non-hegemonic conditions. Which means there physical location does not change or effect the space, in this work the space is with in the digital dimension. With this in mind these door do act as door with the user allowed to open and close the door into the heterotopia.

This situation the doors synchronising makes the user when opening one door to feel a presents on the other door. This interaction with the doors seem to be an act of play as people could take it in turn to open and close the door, and play with the situation of trying to see if the door will always open for them when they touch one. This notion of play will be a instant reaction to the work, once this notion has been pasted the audience can fully interact with the piece. This type of learning curve is similar to what happens in technology, when a person first gets something new they play with it and try to work out what happens when they do something. It is a bottom to top action of learning, when you try something out and hope it works. When they have pasted this stage then the audience knows the relationship between the actions and use them to accomplish the tasks. This work is sited completely in new technology habits, with each part of the relationship engaging with the new ideas of the time. With the act of synchronising between the doors, makes the physical actions of the audience converted from a physical action to a cloud basted process which is then used on the door.

The cloud is when a computer system as been places on a web server so can be accessed anywhere in the world it is a heterotopia personal computer, where someone can place their work privately and hopefully securely. This notion of the cloud has become an important aspect of technology in the last few months. Specially with the wikileaks controversy, the idea that anything can be places on the internet and be displayed and used either privately or publicly depending on how it is setup is now in doubt as anything in the cloud removes the original authors permissions and protection of it. This makes any private information public without restrictions. This idea that the private actions of the audience's body movements in opening the door is changed into a public action as the other door is opened and it has become recorded in the cloud. This relationship can allow multiple members of the audience to interaction with each other and create a relationship between each other as their actions become a subject of public pleasure watching each the people interaction and preform for them and the computer.