REDOUBT (the old therapeutic institution) involved the rewiring of Block 72E, a dental centre that was part of a military medical camp in Singapore. A few years ago the ‘plug’ was pulled and all the plumbing, electrical and other infrastructure was left to die… until Ashok Sukumaran‘s artwork’s attempted a reorganisation of its electrical “body.”
About 30 individual connections are drawn from old switch and dimmer locations. The audience is invited to uncover hidden texts that formed part of the original waiting room experience (for ex. The God who gave us teeth will also give us bread – Czech proverb); perform some simple exercises involving the electrical system (count, stretch, look behind you, look around the corner and so on.); interact with electrical instruments for the soothing of self-doubt (give yourself a massage, or watch yourself magnified, turning switches on and off); play with a bug killer, a ‘make your own holes’ drill, an infrared heat-light, etc.
This “therapeutic” installation asks visitors to participate in a re-learning or re-booting of our relationship with electricity: our doubts about electrical life, our shared history with this technology, and some fear of ‘embedded’ states to come.
In the back room, the signal board of a monitoring station displays the activity on all the electrical circuits, along with video and audio surveillance. The board is a real-time ‘behaviour map’ of the space outside. So even as visitors press switches and enjoy moments of electrical satisfaction, the circuits are watching, and the walls have ears. For example, one of the displays counts the time between switch presses, much like some office monitoring systems count keystroke intervals as a measure of productivity.
The “therapeutic institution� in the title also refers to art critic Dave Hickey’s criticism of institutional art as basically therapeutic (telling us that art ‘is good for you’). The control room provides a context from which to view this condition, a space from where the people watching the ‘art’ can be watched.
Video of the tour of the installation by the artist.
I wish i could have seen the installation. It’s probably one of the most interesting art work i’ve read about for a long time. For several reasons: i like this idea of “resuscitating” an abandoned military venue and turning it into a mysterious playground; i’m quite intrigued by how electricity affects our bodies and Sukumaran seem to explore the issue in a way which is approachable for any kind of audience but i’m also totally obsessed by anything related to tooth care. I do take the plane just to see the dentist (bonjour monsieur Neutelings) because no one but him can understand my teeth, he’s constantly buying super-high-tech devices and because i don’t really have any choice: i’m currently living in a country where dentistry is stuck in the ’50s, i have countless stories to tell but that will be for another time…
Via universes in universe.
Also by Ashok Sukumaran: Glow Positioning System.