a new Flatland

May 16, 2007 11:21 PM

Two feet wide , twenty eight feet long, forty feet high. The six people that lived there called it flatland. They lived in this clear vinyl space for 15 days. Says the designer: "I see (smell and hear) way more than I want about the habits of the others I am flat [sic] with. The design of the space constructs us in a way that departs from how we culturally understand ourselves (autonomous, private, and with options for movement). After six days in Flatland I feel more like a pet than a person."
posted by bigmusic (38 comments total)

Here I ask: why. They say it's an experiment, but I don't really see a thesis statement or hypothesis or anything else which is required of an experiment. An experiment in what, exactly? That living in this thing will severely constrain my lifestyle? Duh. Plus, it's not really two dimensions - it's just something that looks kind of interesting but ultimately doesn't prove or accomplish anything. I just graduated from an environmental design faculty, studied architecture for a bit etc. so I'm not a newbie to the concept of experimental design. These need a purpose, though - without a purpose this is a total waste of time and energy.

/rant.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:35 PM on May 16, 2007

These guys should try living in my Tokyo apartment for two weeks.
posted by zardoz at 12:00 AM on May 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

imagine the gallery closing, the lights turning off, being stuck with those people with nobody watching.... prison.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:03 AM on May 17, 2007

Golderned ignorant flatlanders!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:35 AM on May 17, 2007

Haha: orange jumpsuits and all.

But seriously, why get all bent on it? I've never seen anything like it before, and really enjoyed knowing about them. It's a pretty unusual and impractical form of minimalism, but why immediately equate it to a scientific experiment?

From here: In this semi-extreme performance, 6 curious artists strip away not only most of modern life's familiar structures, but an entire dimension: they have elected to inhabit a structure that effectively forces them to live in 2 dimensions.

It's a bunch of artists experimenting with living space, society or whatever else they are reading into life to lead themselves to express themselves this way. You may not like(or are threatened by) it, but this is art to these folks.
posted by a_green_man at 1:08 AM on May 17, 2007

Wasn't getting bent, mabe overreacted given my background. I guess I'm just confused by the lack of explanation as to why they're doing this - surely there is a reason. It just rubs me the wrong way in that it's all a load of pseudo-speak - experiment, two dimensions etc. It's none of these. So what is it? If it's art, what are they saying? I imagine nobody could give a straight answer, because really it's just a load of visual and experiential masturbation.
posted by jimmythefish at 1:12 AM on May 17, 2007

...because really it's just a load of visual and experiential masturbation.

Right. It's Art.
posted by vacapinta at 1:13 AM on May 17, 2007

So what is it?

Not an experiment in the sense that a person who went to school for community planning and urban design might read the literature, study the concept, and then try some carefully controlled experiments to see how people react to living in such an environment. There ain't no folk in white lab coats walking around with clipboards taking notes.

It is a performance, a spectacle, and an experiment in the looser "let's try this thing we've never done and see what it's like for us and the audience" sense.

And living in that thing is about as close as human beings can get to living in two dimensions. What did you want them to do, use a big cartoon steamroller to flatten themselves first?
posted by pracowity at 3:27 AM on May 17, 2007

Man, using my sex-swing would be pure hell in that place.
posted by bardic at 3:47 AM on May 17, 2007

...because really it's just a load of visual and experiential masturbation.

Right. It's Art.

I don't see what's any more masturbatory about it then, say, climbing Everest or eating seal poop in Antartica. It might be pointless to you, but to someone with a different imaginative bent it might be compelling to answer the question "what would it be like to live in an ant farm?" It might not be the world's profoundest question about inhabitation (and actually there probably are some useful correlatives, like space travel and extended submarine living), and sure, the designer emits wafts of pretension, but they're not demanding your tax dollars to pay for it, nor even your participation as an audience member. So stfu, haters. Let the hamsters have their fun.
posted by DenOfSizer at 3:54 AM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

The problem that some have with performance art like this is the notion that these artists are doing this stuff as a living, while we slog along in our day-to-day jobs earning money the real way. If this was just a spare-time project, for fun, by normal people (not artists), then I don't think anyone would mind so much.

Which is why, when I get round to performing my piece Mashed Mazurka Marathon (wherein I haul a piano into a public space, start playing through all of Chopin's 57 mazurkas, drinking a measure of whisky after each one, and see how far I can get before passing out or being arrested), it'll be on my own time, on my own terms.
posted by chrismear at 4:45 AM on May 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

(40/6)*2*28 = ~375 cu.ft. of space. $2,000 / mo. in NY. But it's a great neighborhood.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:48 AM on May 17, 2007

This reminds me of something I saw in Mad years ago about a family that lived in the scoreboard of a baseball stadium. I remember thinking back then that it would be kind of cool. Now? Yeah, prison.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 5:56 AM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow. This is worse than Tiny House.
posted by LordSludge at 6:13 AM on May 17, 2007

And living in that thing is about as close as human beings can get to living in two dimensions. What did you want them to do, use a big cartoon steamroller to flatten themselves first?

That's kinda like saying "I can't really be a ghost but it sounds good, so I'll wear a white sheet and call myself one. Anyone who objects will be stifling my creativity."

Not hating, just...uh...yeah. Don't call it things it's not.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:40 AM on May 17, 2007

"I had an ant farm once, those fuckers didn't grow shit."

-Mitch Hedberg
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:02 AM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

neat. and artistically compelling to a lot of people these days, i'd think, what with the popularity of reality TV. we're bored as members of a leisure society. we want to be tested physically and mentally. we want to be lab rats?

(and by 'we' i don't mean really mean 'me.' i'm happy as a clam to take a leisurely walk and read a book, most of the time.)
posted by es_de_bah at 7:26 AM on May 17, 2007

As for the "it's not 2D" pedants, let's agree, then, to call it quasi-2D or highly-restricted 3D. Earth's not really a sphere, and a vacuum isn't quite.

ONTO the "art" of the project, it's something to ponder and something to infuse a bit of alternate reality in the minds of these artists. It's not a modern masterpiece, nor is it something I made out of cardboard, markers, and some copper wire. It's all about perspective.

However, I am a bit spooked about the PRISON application. I could certainly imagine future prisons having a similar design, but I guess that's just my imagination running wild. So many people would go nuts about such a facility that it would never happen, right?

while we slog along in our day-to-day jobs earning money the real way - chrismear

It bothers me that people earn money the "real way" by exploiting the ignorance of other people. If artists can get the "average jane and joe" to snap out of their eat-sleep-work-buy mentality, then I'll cheer even the most ridiculous feats of creativity. All this arts-and-farts-and-crafts doesn't need to justify it's existence to fit neatly within the mind-numbing day-to-day of the working class. It bothers me more that there are people running companies into the ground and getting rich from it. The working class wouldn't see a benefit of no more ART PROJECTS except that maybe we could completely submit ourselves to the great Chronos and Zeus and file all our progress reports on time. Bleh. My rant is over. My apologies Chrismear for taking your comment to an extreme. I have no intention of perpetuating a ruckus.
posted by quanta and qualia at 8:12 AM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Bad design makes people uncomfortable. Got it.

Not that that's not a good point. I think it's a great point. Playtime, my all time favorite movie, makes that point very well, with a lot of absurd humor and eventual optimism thrown in. Flatland is a sort of extreme version of the glass-walled apartment of M. Hulot's friend.

I think the house is a really interesting visually. But the results are so obvious and unsurprising that it makes me wonder why they bothered.

Plus, c'mon, look at the shoddy construction. If I was going to spend 15 days in a confined space, I'd be sure there weren't screws sticking out of the walls.
posted by hydrophonic at 8:44 AM on May 17, 2007

I'm not being intentionally pedantic and I'm not disliking the concept. Just up for a discussion, perhaps, instead of being called a hater and that I should let it alone. What is the point of MetaFilter if not to discuss? If it was posted to ask why?

This pretentious criticism of 'eat-sleep-work-buy mentality', though, is something else entirely. That's fairly insulting to a large part of the population, given that subsistence is often borne of necessity rather than desire for the working class. Perhaps all that is needed to snap them out of a mortgage and a factory job and a beer and football game at the end of the day is some sophmoric, bullshit art project.
posted by jimmythefish at 8:51 AM on May 17, 2007

Visually interesting, but I really don't see anything besides visuals that would explain why they chose the whole "fake 2D" motif; pretty much everything they talk about seems to be related to the cramped-ness, not the 2D-ness.

I'm just guessing that experiments in very cramped communal living have been done quite a bit before, so they feel they needed a hook.
posted by Bugbread at 9:21 AM on May 17, 2007

Interesting idea, pretty good execution. I liked it. Did it overturn any of my assumptions, or even give me the petit mort artgasm "click" feeling that, say, an Agnes Martin painting does? No. But jeez, some people here are crabby.
posted by everichon at 10:39 AM on May 17, 2007

I really don't see anything besides visuals that would explain why they chose the whole "fake 2D" motif

So that everyone can see them all the time (besides bathroom time, and maybe you can see their feet then?) as if they were on a canvas or in an ant farm, and so they have to run into one another and work out a way to live like that.
posted by pracowity at 10:42 AM on May 17, 2007

I think the notion of the "experiment" makes more sense given the experience of living in an extremely dense urban environment. E.g., "Somedays, it feels as if we're trending toward a situation in which living spaces will be so compact that, practically speaking, we'll only have significant movement up & down and forward & back. Hmm. Maybe we should try it to see what it's like." That's part of what art does -- give concrete form to imaginative but useless (in a utilitarian sense) products of the imagination.

As for the "artist's life" vs the "workaday life," while there are a few trust fund babies out there, most of the artists I know make a deliberate choice to extricate themselves, at least partially, from the 9-5 world and find alternative means of supporting themselves. With very rare exception, the US doesn't shield artists from the harsh realities of the market forces to which we're all subjected (nor am I arguing that it should). The risk in taking such a leap is enormous -- it may be the difference between a lifetime of barely scraping by and a lifetime of middle class comforts.
posted by treepour at 10:52 AM on May 17, 2007

Yeah, I would much prefer a culture well stocked with artists trying anything that enters into their heads--and all the goofy misfires that entails. It's funner. Excelsior!
posted by everichon at 11:07 AM on May 17, 2007

[NOT MISFIRE-IST]
posted by everichon at 11:08 AM on May 17, 2007

pracowity : "So that everyone can see them all the time (besides bathroom time, and maybe you can see their feet then?) as if they were on a canvas or in an ant farm, and so they have to run into one another and work out a way to live like that."

Ah, yeah, whoops, now I feel dumb.
posted by Bugbread at 11:10 AM on May 17, 2007

I may be an "artist," but I will freely admit that I don't "get" performance art. Why on earth is living in a box considered "art?" Are you making a statement about the diminishing size of apartments? If so, it's a bit disingenuous to be living in a box while paying rent on a decent size apartment (and I imagine that being fancy artists, they probably have studios as well). Is everyone in Tokyo therefore a performance artist?

Really guys, you've got to shoot yourself in the shoulder, or masturbate under a ramp, or wrap yourself in lard before I'm really going to grok how this is "art."

(Though I do appreciate the use of the "smelly" tag on this post.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:24 PM on May 17, 2007

Why on earth is living in a box considered "art?"

I guess I feel the burden of proof is on you. Why doesn't it qualify as art? Sure it doesn't wow you (and it doesn't wow me either), but does that mean it doesn't qualify as art?

Really guys, you've got to shoot yourself in the shoulder, or masturbate under a ramp, or wrap yourself in lard before I'm really going to grok how this is "art."

So if I do any one of those three, then you'd consider what I'm doing art? Or are you saying that performance art has to be individual, body-oriented, extreme, and with masochistic/humiliating overtones?
posted by treepour at 12:42 PM on May 17, 2007

So if I do any one of those three, then you'd consider what I'm doing art? Or are you saying that performance art has to be individual, body-oriented, extreme, and with masochistic/humiliating overtones?

Actually, I was just referencing Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, and Joseph Beuys, but if you want to read more into it, go for it.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:33 PM on May 17, 2007

This pretentious criticism of 'eat-sleep-work-buy mentality', though, is something else entirely. That's fairly insulting to a large part of the population, given that subsistence is often borne of necessity rather than desire for the working class. Perhaps all that is needed to snap them out of a mortgage and a factory job and a beer and football game at the end of the day is some sophmoric, bullshit art project. -jimmythefish

Fair enough. Again, not looking to insult. First off, we don't know each other, each other's backgrounds or current situations.

As for the "eat-sleep-work-buy" mentality: These are not facts, and so they're liable to offend, but in the spirit of open discussion, I posted them. Also, as treepour said, "most of the artists I know make a deliberate choice to extricate themselves, at least partially, from the 9-5 world and find alternative means of supporting themselves." If many people get upset at me because I said art doesn't have to fit into the day-to-day working class mentality, then I'll look to reconcile it, but if they get upset at art for not justifying itself, then I'll repeat that art does not have to fit what's relevant to your (or my) life. It's about creative vision and at times provides poignant social commentary. If we're going to get into the discussion about "why art" at all, then I think we should do it on another thread.

For this art project, we can discuss it's function, quality, and it's success (however that's measured). How is this art? It seems like a baited question. What makes anything art? Let's not get crazy on this one. It's being offered as art to the audience. If a critic finds it artless, then so be it.

As I see it, the eat-sleep-work-buy mentality, as I call it, has no use for art. I personally dislike the idea of an artless world because it does limit my day-to-day to just eat-sleep-work-buy. Should I recommend it as I have as a societal model? That's debatable. Art design gets put into advertisements and the like. Getting knowledgeable to art's effects might allow some to be less susceptible to coerced interest in products.

I say art does provoke one into thinking outside their working knowledge and puts them in uncomfortable positions at times. This benefits us as it may tune us in to our mode of analysis and approach to challenging or unusual experiences.

Again, apologies for specific offense, but not for "generally" being controversial.
posted by quanta and qualia at 1:33 PM on May 17, 2007

I want to climb to the top and sprinkle fish flakes on them.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:44 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's not that the project itself is lame, it's the banality of their observations, e.g., survival can sometimes depend on "inventing new mechanisms of interacting and surviving in one's mind."
posted by Nahum Tate at 1:57 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sorry, grapefruitmoon, didn't mean to come off so heavy-handed. The point I was trying to make is that those artists you mentioned engage(d) in a particular kind of performance art, in certain kinds of actions that, over the years, we've grown accustomed to calling "performance art." Maybe you were just pointing out that the flatland project is lame art and is not not up to the standards/stakes of previous generations of performance art.

However, I (uncharitably) read into your comment an implicit assumption about what sorts of activities could legitimately be considered performance art -- specifically those types of activities pioneered by the artists you mention, and no others.

I agree that this isn't great art (though I find it interesting), but I don't see why the project isn't worthy of being considered a legitimate attempt to make art.
posted by treepour at 2:26 PM on May 17, 2007

Wait: (40/6)*2*28 = ~375 cu.ft. of space. $2,000 / mo. in NY. But it's a great neighborhood.

375 cubic feet. So assuming ceilings are 8 feet tall, that's 87 square feet (I rounded). I call bullshit. Actually, maybe you're making a joke. But either way, um... I'm saying things?
posted by !Jim at 5:52 PM on May 17, 2007

That's some heavy rounding, there, !Jim. For 375/8 my calculator gives me 46.875 square feet. Makes the NY appraisal even sillier.
posted by Bugbread at 6:14 PM on May 17, 2007

Metafilter: if you want to read more into it, go for it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:28 PM on May 17, 2007

Maybe you were just pointing out that the flatland project is lame art and is not not up to the standards/stakes of previous generations of performance art.

Yep. That's exactly what I was doing.

If you want to stand on one foot and put a paper bag on your head and call it "art," well, that's your right. And I don't think that there's any qualifications to what is and what is not art - basically, if the "artist" calls it art, well, then, there you go.

However, I still think it is in the viewer's right to say that art can be lame.

And I think that this, in particular, is pretty lame. Perhaps I'm trying too hard, but I'm just not grasping the concept. These people are living in this artificial environment why?
posted by grapefruitmoon at 7:22 PM on May 17, 2007