Olafur Eliasson
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Work from his oeuvre.
“Everything is situated within a process – everything is in motion. This not only applies to comprehensive systems like entire societies or the development of an international search engine on the internet, but also to our perception of a given space, here and now, and to our interaction with other people. All these relationships are evolving and they are not merely situated in the midst of their time; rather, they are of time.
Despite this, contemporary culture has a tendency to objectify a vast quantity of systems, relations, situations and ideas by depriving them of their temporal dimension. As a result, we have grown accustomed to regarding objects as timeless and our conception of space has been formalised. The entertainment industry, especially, has developed a strategy of communication that consciously omits the notion of temporality, since this makes it easier to set up universal utopias and desires for consumers. The separation of time and objects is thus to a large degree driven by commercial aims.” – Olafur Elaisson from his essay Your Engagement has Consequences.