Noise Machine
Public Intervention
05–2014
Is the efficacy of subversive, or revolutionary ideas, diminished within a white cube gallery setting? By cutting and pasting the plinth from an institionalised structure into the public realm, Noise Machine invites us to consider how we create and consume art, questioning whether the gallery powers up or neutralises the revolutionary potential of ideas.
“INSTRUCTIONS FOR A NOISE MACHINE” is a provocation to artists and consumers to reject the structures that subsume and diminish art within a system of consumption.
Even if the idea is revolutionary, as soon as you step through the door, you are passively consuming the idea as entertainment. Artists start out with the best intentions and then their ideas become neutralised in this setting. A barrier or threshhold that cannot be crossed is marked by the plinth, or a sign that says ‘do not touch’ and this sends the message that these radical concepts are for display only (they aren’t real ideas with agency in the real world). “Instructions for a noise machine” is a provocation that says ‘free ideas’ from the structures that neutralise them, in order to power them up.
Grant Cieciura
Modality: public intervention
Location: Brighton
Collaborators: Grant Cieciura, Tiago de Sousa