Background and transitstation goals
In a gallery, the artwork meets the eye of the viewer in an assigned position of stillness and repose: the work has come to a resting point after the physical process of being handled and transported from the point of production to the point of viewing.
At the transitstation event this traditional concept is countered with the idea that the artwork can begin at the point of production where the process itself becomes the object of viewing and contemplation. In this situation, viewers' expectations regarding the static, 'plastic' element of artwork must be adjusted on entering the space for at the moment they are already in the work.
The idea of 'exhibition' is challenged in a perspective where the visitor, the artist and the artwork are placed in an active relationship as observer and observed. Exhibition as event is action and happening, and thus encourages a natural inclination towards movement.
Experience is change, the objective of multiple cultural disciplines is change, and above all individual perception is change.
The aura of the space,' ...encompasses in the working process the presence of the micro-community, which will accommodate it. A work thus creates, within its method of production, and then at the moment of exhibition, a momentary grouping of participating viewers.'? (Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, 2002, p58) Except there is no difference between the 'other' of production place and production itself. It is all 'experience' and a situation of change. And in all work being produced, the nature of the relationship to the work of art is at question.
Bourriaud: 'What nowadays forms the foundation of artistic experience is the joint presence of beholders in front of the work' or further, being inside it.' (ibd.p 57)
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