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Schools Activities
Idea of Installation
(Key Stage 4)
There are five activities in this workshop. They are either discussion
based or practical making and doing activities.
Discussion
What is an installation? ( a room, an environment, 3D art? )
What is the difference between an installation and a sculpture?
(Installation may be seen as an artwork that takes over a space,
that uses the space itself. They are often site-specific, using
the nuances of the gallery or space itself. Whereas a sculpture
is a piece of art which is discreet in itself. It has defined boundaries
and is often placed in a room or gallery with other artworks or
objects. There is overlap between sculpture and installation, for
instance, they are both 3D and both forms of art can use everyday
objects or more traditional art materials.)
Compare and Contrast
Damien Hirst's artwork Pharmacy exists both online and in
reality at Tate Modern. Do you think installation works well on
screen?
What about painting - does painting translate well on to a computer
screen? Think of a painting you have seen in real life. You could
choose one that you have seen at one of the Tate galleries. Compare
this painting to the Tate
Collections website.
If you haven't visited a Tate Gallery, you could imagine what one
of the student's paintings would look like on a screen. How different
would it be to experience the painting in that way rather than in
'real life'.
Question: What differences are there between this work online and
the one at Tate Modern?
If you aren't able to visit Tate Modern, imagine what those differences
must be. Think about the senses you use when you visit a gallery
or museum (sound, smell, scale, awareness of other visitors, etc)
compared with viewing a screen (only visual, though sometime there
is sound.)
What is special about viewing on screen?
How does your screen point of view differ from that of being in
a gallery?
(Pharmacy online is a 360 degree
view of the installation. In the gallery there will be barriers
to protect the artwork from damage so audiences won't be able to
get as close to the objects. Also, the view on the website is from
any perspective you choose. You could be sitting on the ceiling
or on the floor. It's almost a fly's eye view. This is also unique
to viewing the work online.)
In pairs, write down five things that are unique to viewing Pharmacy
online compared with in a gallery. Damien Hirst has created Pharmacy
in a number of different galleries throughout the world. Find out where
and what the differences were between some of these installations. Do these
differences change the meaning of the artwork? If so, how?
Find out about Pharmacy online and its alternative
installations.
Sketching
Explore the online Pharmacy space and draw a plan of the
artwork as if you were seeing it from above. This is a way of making
sense of the real space that Pharmacy occupies. Now chose
one angle as if you were standing in the room and make a sketch
of the room using traditional perspective techniques (single point
or 2-point).
How different would Pharmacy have been had Damien Hirst chosen
to paint or draw the objects instead of using the real things? Why
was it important to use the real objects? There are no right or
wrong answers, just say what you think.
Patterns and Arrangement
Damien Hirst has created the installation using objects we may
not associate with art - medicine and pharmaceuticals. Yet these
objects are part of our everyday life. There are many theories about
how he chose to arrange each object (by colour, or by function,
or what part of the body the medicine is associated with, etc)
Also at Tate Modern, there is another artwork by Damien Hirst where
he has classified or arranged everyday objects, in this case, shells.
Think about the everyday objects around you in the classroom (or
you could choose to bring in everyday objects from home)
Look at them again, with the eyes of an installation artist, and
see if you can arrange them so you see them in a different light.
You could choose to place them according to size, shape, colour,
smell, or other senses or according to other ways of classifying
the objects, like function or what you associate with them or how
they make you feel.
Symbols and Meaning
Damien Hirst has thought about the arrangement of the actual objects
in Pharmacy but he has also used these objects for their
symbolic value.
What is the significance of using pharmaceuticals for this artwork?
What do you they symbolise for you? What do you think the artist
is trying to say?
Come up with new and interesting categories or themes for the everyday
objects around you, and then rearrange them accordingly.
Think carefully about what you are including and what those things
may symbolise.
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