Christian Marclay - book

Footsteps © Christian Marclay 1989 

3,500 single sided 12 inch vinyl records 

Installation, Shedhalle, Zurich

Installation art can be described as a 4 dimensional world where height,width, depth and time become the main components within which the art piece exists. Each viewer experiences the work in different ways and thus come to lots of different ways and creates new pieces of art within the initial work. The idea of moving art away from the gallery walls can be attributed in part the work of pop artists in the 60's who raised the question of art as product and thus paved the way for artists such as christian Marclay who fused the idea of sound and vision to create a new interactive form of art.
one such work is 'footsteps'(1989) in which he recorded the sound of his footsteps and overlayed it with the sound of tap dancing onto vinyl records - 3,500 in total. These vinyls were laid onto the gallery floor and effectively walked on by the visitors, they themselves becoming part of the resulting work in which the now scratched and damaged vinyls were packaged up and sold creating a new sound. The question remains however, had these vinyls remained unsold would the piece have become solely about the 'idea' of sound

Magnetic Recording Tape © Christian Marclay 1991

Installation, DAAD Galerie Berlin

Another piece of work created on a much more subtle scale is the work 'Magnetic recording Tape' (1991) displayed much like a hammock and with a recording of the sound of rain, the construction - carries very little density so the idea of the views presence, their breath, can move through and disrupt the shape of the structure and create a sense of a whisp like subtle after effect of a body being there. Their presence effectively create a DNA which has been transferred onto the delicate tape and further adds to the feeling of participation even in it's more subtle form.

Authors: Jennifer Gonzalez, Kim Gordon, Matthew Higgs
Title: Christian Marclay
Published: Phaidon Press LTD 2005
Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc.
ISBN 0714843741