Walk-Through Exhibits
THE ELASTIC SPACE OF GIANNI COLOMBO
“My whole world has been turned upside down. Up is black, south is white...” —Peter Griffin15
Many walk-through exhibits have an inherently disorienting effect. The use of elaborate visual cues distorts the viewer’s perspective, twisting the fabric of time and space around the observer.
Spazio Elastico by Gianni Colombo. Photograph courtesy of Archivio Gianni Colombo.
Exhibits such as Gianni Colombo’s Spazio Elastico (the Elastic Space) deliberately disrupt the participant’s sense of balance and physical reality. The Italian artist created a dark room, illuminated with ultraviolet light and crisscrossed by horizontal and vertical fibers. A series of motors moved the fibers back and forth in a surreal web of glowing strands.
Emerging from the golden age of kinetic structures, Colombo transcended the concept of art as a passive, static object to be merely observed. Those who traverse such exhibits are not passive bystanders—they become drawn into the work as active participants.
Cromo Dromo by Gianni Colombo. Photograph courtesy of Archivio Gianni Colombo.
Colombo’s Elastic Space appears to morph around its viewers, functioning as a walk-through Rorschach test as it evokes a variety of reactions. For some observers, the exhibit is a diabolical Cat’s Cradle that traps them in its snares. For others, the fluctuation of the fibers appears to acquiesce to their presence, bowing low as they walk by. —DJS