The event of disorientation: artistic methods of immanent critique

Scott Andrew Elliott

Through stories recounting experiences of disorientation and the process of reorientation, potentials are found for rethinking our relation to built surroundings. Engaging with art historical examples of architectural art installations that use methods repetition and replication, disorientation is approached as a catalyst for a process of ‘immanent critique’. This presents a way to critically engage with and inflect what is happening in the moment while remaining within the immediacy of that moment. This holds the potential for a participant in the event to inflect the event with one’s own implicated agency. The unfolding event is redirected, and novelty can emerge. The artworks of Mike Nelson, Gregor Schneider and Glenn Seator are discussed as sharing methods of artistic practice that catalyse immanent critique through their disorienting installations. Through a discussion of a selection of art installations, this paper proposes how employing methods of architectural repetition or doppelgängers can result in a catalytic disorientation. It is within this experience or event of disorientation that an immanent critique can take place, and where potentials for change can be taken up.

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Note on background image:

This image is in the public domain for countries in which copyright is held by the author/artist for life plus 100 years.

Scan from the original work: Réimpression [1904] de l'Architecture françoise de Jacques-François Blondel (Paris, 1752–1756).

User: Robert.Allen / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

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