Trigger Experiences

I have long been a fan of Brian Eno, ever since I went to a sensory exhibit of his in Long Beach, California, back in my art school days. The huge meandering gallery space was in almost complete darkness but for these glowing, changing colors in variously constructed light boxes. His music played in the background, and you had to move about slowly because you couldn’t see that well. You could see the forms of other people, but that was it, so you weren’t distracted by any people watching or influenced by anyone else’s reaction to the work. It was ethereal, wandering through the dark space, watching these kind of light sculptures hover in the space around you. THAT was an experience, not a series of objects.

Now, I know we’re not likely to do anything quite so grand in the way our work is presented, but sometimes we can influence our work by simply thinking about how it is experienced by the person who ends up owning or viewing it: how it might relate to their life, how it would live in their home, or how it will feel to the wearer or make other people feel when they see it on that person. Our works are not just a series of objects. They are additions to our lives and the lives of those who end up with them. They can be experiences.