In moving the design process out of the Euclidean space and into the exhibition space of the lower gallery, some challenges and possibilities that structure of the building puts forth becomes clear.
Below I will highlight a selection of challenges and possibilities to analyze and discus how they have affected the process of making the anniversary exhibition Nikolaj – Københavns Kunsthal 40 years.
173 Dean, «Planning for success», 367.
174 Latour, Yaneva, «Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move».
175 Personal conversation with Helene Nyborg Bay, 11.02.2021.
176 Dean, «Planning for success», 367.
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Working with Size and Structure in Exhibition Design Process
The most obvious structural feature of the lower gallery might be the size of the room.177 Nyborg Bay points out that the lower gallery in Nikolaj Kunsthal is one of the biggest exhibition spaces in the center of Copenhagen and how that by default becomes a huge advantage and makes it
possible to work in a larger scale.178 But the size of the lower gallery can also be a challenge.
Krebs Sørensen explains: “All though the size of the room can seem great and impressive, it can also be a bit intimidating to some artists, because it requires something to fill it.”179 Both Krebs Sørensen and Nyborg Bay mentions that what seems like a big and grandiose sculpture in conceptual sketches or in the artist’s studio, automatically shrinks when entering the lower gallery.180
A way of solving the frightening element of the size with design and layout tools is to divide the room into smaller sections. It can be a challenge says Nyborg Bay, because the room is not really meant to be divided.181 The room already has its form of a church with the pillars and arches dividing the main nave from the side naves (Figure 16). And these huge solid immovable arcades might be seen as a challenge to work around. But as described by Guggenheim in the chapter on theory, the immovable may also be mutable.182 Helene Nyborg Bay explains:
“There are some challenges in that (the size and structure), and that’s why we sometimes build walls between the pillars. To create a room in the room. To create some intimate spaces for art works that requires a closer engagement from the visitor.”183
In the case of the anniversary exhibition the arcades and pillars are muted into walls or portals leading the visitor into individual niches with specific artwork (Figure 24).
Working With Size and Structure in Artistic Production
The artist Filip Vest´s work A bed made to look like body (Figure 25-26) is an example form the anniversary exhibition of ‘a room in the room’ built up with temporary walls that Nyborg Bay describes above. As mentioned in the section on articulation of use the encoded meaning of the church building has not made that much of an impact on Vest in his artistic production since the space is so heavily articulated as a kunsthalle. In his piece he creates a fictional narrative, which
177 Moser, «The Devil is in the Detail», 25.
178 Personal conversation with Helene Nyborg Bay, 11.02.2021.
179 Personal conversation with Maja Krebs Sørensen, 04.03.2021.
180 Personal conversation with Helene Nyborg Bay, 11.02.202, Personal conversation with Maja Krebs Sørensen, 04.03.2021.
181 Personal conversation with Helene Nyborg Bay, 11.02.2021.
182 Guggenheim, «Unifying and Decomposing Building Types», 447.
183 Personal conversation with Maja Krebs Sørensen, 04.03.2021.
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takes the visitor out of the church space and into a different environment.184 The concept of Vests work is a structural installation of an empty hotel room, which makes it quite literary a room in the room. In working with his installation Vest explains how the structure created an architectural frame for his artistic production:
“One of the things I have thought about a lot when entering a room like this, is that I try to relate to some dimension. The room becomes a defining aspect, I use the dimensions in the room to build upon. So, the installation latches on like a parasite.”185
In Vests production the architectural structure is an active actant in suggesting a grid of lines to work out from. In building temporary walls, the immovable can in fact act very transformative.
The total of the installation can be viewed as a bigger construction, a room in the room. But within the installation Vest works in smaller scale with small objects scattered around on the floor of the hotel room scene (Figure 27). Vest tells me how he works with movement and the museum body in his installation. He wanted to create an intimate space for the visitor, a form of escape from the sublime church architecture.186 To experience the full installation the visitor is asked to take their shoes of and step into the work of art to connect with the different objects on the floor such as glasses, a toothbrush, and pistachio shells (Figure 28). When talking to Vest about his artistic production and installation, we sit right on the verge of the piece, on the stone floor during the installing of the exhibition (Figure 29). Vest stretches out his hand to stroke the soft wall to wall carpet that marks the transition from church building or kunsthalle to an artwork showing a hotel scene. “I want people to do something that they might not want to; to step into the
installation. But if you do so, you get a very intimate experience with the piece. And a very comfortable one.”187 He says jokingly.
Putting up walls to make an intimate space in the lower gallery creates a harmonic division of the room.188 By altering the technical properties of the floor and creating this contrast in one step Vest activates the sense of touch and the experience of the artwork becomes a bodily experience of movement from one space to another. At the same time the small-scale objects drag you down to the floor and makes the proprioception and felt distance to the celling even more apparent ones you are “inside” the installation.189 In this way Vest´s work is both a continuation and a total disruption of the architecture.
184 Personal Communications with Filip Vest, 11.02.2021.
185 Personal Communications with Filip Vest, 11.02.2021.
186 Personal Communications with Filip Vest, 11.02.2021.
187 Personal Communications with Filip Vest, 11.02.2021.
188 Moser, «The Devil is in the Detail», 25.
189 Leahy, Museum Bodies, 3.
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Prototyping – Working with Design in Three-Dimensional Space
Another potential provided by the structure and size is that it provides for video projections in great scale.190 A way of working with design for exhibitions with video content is by testing and prototyping video projection in the exhibition space. During the development phase of the anniversary exhibition we (the exhibit team) were able to experiment with the size of video projection in the lower gallery. Below I will explain how the size and structure made this possible while the lower gallery was in fact occupied by another exhibition, and how prototyping became an important tool in the design process.
In the pre-production work, we digitalized the video works from the archive from U-matic and VHS tapes to digital files. By using a portable computer and a projector placed on a trolly the files could easily be projected on to the walls in Nikolaj Kunsthal before opening hours (Figure 30).
The exhibition that occupied the lower gallery at the time was a display of huge installations placed around the room with a lot of space in between them (Figure 31). Because of the size of the lower gallery, we could easily move the projector around these sculptures and experiment with the video works from the archive on the white stonewalls (Figure 32). This gave us an understanding of which works needed a larger scale projection and which works would fit better on smaller monitors, not only in terms of the quality of the picture and sound in the digital files, but also in terms of what format was most suitable for the artistic expression of the work. This was at a time in the process where the art works of the contemporary artist were not ready but experimenting with the video works from the archive provided a starting point for what the artworks needed in terms of space. As well as where in the exhibition space they could be placed to fit each other and their contemporary partners. This gave us a first impression of what the exhibition layout and design could be.191
This prototyping process, the design process in situ, can also be seen as a definition of the term practice of space, since the design processes is in fact moved from the office, moved out of the Euclidian space of the floorplan, and practiced in the actual space of the exhibition. It is designing in three-dimensional space.192 Prototyping also has a transformative power.193 In experimenting with merging the architecture and the art works, we were working with transforming both the
190 Personal conversation with Maja Krebs Sørensen, 04.03.2021.
191 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 122.
192 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 124.
193 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 124.
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space and the artworks. The architecture was transformed from a technical feature of wall and structure to a screen and an artwork on display.
Designing in the Last Minute
In February 2021, a few months after our test projection of the works from the archive, I was back at Nikolaj Kunsthal to observe the installing of Nikolaj – Københavns Kunsthal 40 Years just a few days before the opening of the exhibition (Figure 33). During my observation I was asked to help with installing one of the works. The video work Tango by Zbigniew Rybczyński would be projected on an mdf board in the size that we had decided a few months earlier during the prototyping. In this stage the exhibition design was still not ‘locked’, and the question was how high we should hang the projection. Together with production coordinator Krebs Sørensen and one of the experienced production technicians, we experimented with the height of the projection.
Placing the body in different distances from the projection, squatting down to imagine watching the video work from sitting on a bench (Figure 34-35). This was prototyping and designing in the last minute.
Experimentation and prototyping require knowledge about the building and experience in working in the environment. You need to take knowledge from the first impression of experimentation and develop it further in the design process. From our first session of working with design in three-dimensional space, to my visit when the anniversary exhibition was installed the room had completely changed. Temporary walls had been put up, the light was switched on and off to see the projections better, it was design in the dark (Figure 36). The architecture as an actant had in fact transformed. MacLean stresses that at the core of prototyping is the ability to change.194 She writes “There is no such thing as permanence.”195 Working with an experienced exhibit team who knows the building well, some parts of the design can in fact be left until this last moment, and the experimenting with design features can happen simultaneously as the installing of the exhibition.
As it has been described above the prototyping and experimentation with design in Nikolaj Kunsthal happens across the stages of the development phase. In the case of the anniversary exhibition this was possible because of the size of the lower gallery that provided a certain flexibility to work in the exhibition space with the structure in designing in space, both during planning and production and in the actual installing of the exhibition. What was a strategy and plan, an imagination, in the first design meeting could by prototyping and moving the design work
194 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 129.
195 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 130.
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in to the lower gallery be developed even more in practice of space. Because of the frequently changing exhibition program at Nikolaj Kunsthal the prototyping for exhibition design happens simultaneously as the exhibit planning, text writing, artists production of art works etc. and can because of the size of the lower gallery take place in the exhibit space during the exhibition period of another exhibition. MacLean writes: “Prototyping allows us to be nimble, to employ simple materials, to try out methods and ideas quickly, and revise, improve, and iterate until we reach the
‘sweet spot’ of engagement.”196 It is an experiment between the actants in the network; an engagement between the museum workers, the artist, art objects and the architecture. The prototyping happens in the specific space of the exhibition, a design process in situ, a practice of space that activates both human and non-human actants.
SOUND
The Element of Surprise
In individual conversations with Nyborg Bay and Krebs Sørensen they both point out the
acoustics in the lower gallery as one of biggest challenges in exhibition design and production. “It is actually one of the things that challenges us the most.” Nyborg Bay said.197 At first, I was surprised by this statement. My first experience in Nikolaj Kunsthal was almost one of complete silence, as the only sound was from an installation in the middle of the nave where water was dripping down from the celling into a ceramic sculpture (Figure 3). The height from where the water came, and the open space in the lower gallery, made this dripping of water an acoustics aesthetic experience I very much enjoyed as a visitor. The surprise of the acoustics as a
challenging element might also come from the core expectation imbedded in me that a museum or kunsthalle is a silent place. The 19th century museums devotion to the visual experience installed a
‘quietness’ in the museum model early on. The 20th century’s white cube galleries for modern and contemporary art that followed continued this exclusivity towards the sense of sight neglecting the acoustic experience.198 There is no such thing as a completely silent museum, but nevertheless, to put it crudely we could argue that museums have had this image of a quiet place for decades. The subject of museum sound has in the recent years had an increased focus in the scholarly world.199 But from my analysis of the literature the element of sound, acoustics and sonic experience remains relatively under-explored in the literature concerning space, exhibition design, museum management, and museum architecture.
196 McLean, «Examining process in museum exhibitions», 130.
197 Personal conversation with Helene Nyborg Bay, 11.02.2021.
198 Weins, De Visscher, «How Do We Listen To Museums?», 278.
199 Everrett, «A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design», 314.
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Because of what is described above when you enter Nikolaj Kunsthal, walking into the church building with the high celling, as a visitor it is almost as someone puts an imaginary finger over your mouth forcing you to hush. You expect it to be as quiet as a church, or/and as quiet as a museum. The sacrality of the church calls for silent awe, so does the articulation of the kunsthalle.
Even though almost every survey of contemporary art from the last couple of decades includes sonic or audio-visual art works200, my impression is that these sounds are often experienced trough headphones or in purpose-built environments such as small auditoriums or separate rooms for that specific artwork. Therefor the overall sonic experience of a contemporary kunsthalle will in my experience often have the same silent atmosphere as in a museum, or for that matter a church. Our museums bodies have a default setting to hush when entering a museum or a kunsthalle, preparing for the silent experience by being silent ourselves.
In the anniversary exhibition this decorum of silence of both church and museum is broken. It is a chaos of sounds coming from different places in the room. The anniversary exhibition is an example of an exhibition with diegetic sound. Where the sound is integrated in the audiovisual presentations of art works and the sound demands the attention of the visitor at the same level as the visual experience.201 Therefore, the exhibition already has the opportunity for multisensory engagement.202 It is clear from the moment you step inside the lower gallery that this exhibition does not favor the visual. In working with the anniversary exhibition, the sound and acoustics as a challenging element became more and more obvious in my research.
Working with Sound Sensibility and Sound Sketch
The technological properties identified in the beginning of the analysis chapter such as the high celling, the stone walls and floor, and the immense open space creates a certain acoustic
environment. The structure of the building provides an element of challenging acoustics that you cannot escape. Therefore, you need to make decisions concerning sound design. It calls for sound sensibility, and attention to how sound is integrated in the overall of the exhibition.203 Krebs Sørensen explains: “This room is made for fantastic sonic experiences. But in relation to artworks, it can be a huge challenge. It really needs to be considered.”204
In the first design meeting described in the section on process above, sound and acoustics was also an element taken into consideration in making the design lay out. Nyborg Bay tells me that
200 Weins, De Visscher, «How Do We Listen To Museums?», 278.
201 Everrett, «A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design», 314.
202 Everrett, «A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design», 313.
203 Everrett, «A Curatorial Guide to Museum Sound Design», 317.
204 Personal conversation with Maja Krebs Sørensen, 04.03.2021.
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working with sound pieces that are played simultaneously in a group exhibition, like the
anniversary exhibition, is especially challenging. The room then needs to be divided to give each piece not only the visual, but also the sonic space it demands. 205 The drawings on the floor plan were in this way also a sound sketch considering where sonic elements would appear in relation to each other (Figure 22-23).206 In creating this sound sketch based on the video works from the archive we considered the challenge of keeping sounds separate within the space and highlighting certain sound content.207 We asked ourselves questions like: What sound content can work as a part of the overall sonic experience in the exhibition? What sound content absolutely needs to be listened to ‘by itself’ without other sonic disturbance? Which art works work well together and can in fact complement one another in the soundscape?
The layout with the temporary walls was both affected by and had effect on the sonic design of the exhibition. On one hand, the temporary walls become a design tool to prevent the works from disturbing each other. On the other hand, the walls create a dramatical sound scape that takes you to the different corners in the built-up niches in the lower gallery (Figure 24). As those niches are not silent proof closed rooms or small auditoriums as mentioned above, the overall sound scape of the exhibition is audible in the whole exhibition space. As the works are played simultaneously and the soundtrack varies in intensity, it creates a sound scape in waves, where the sound from one work replaces another. In altering the exhibition space with the temporary walls, the lay out
The layout with the temporary walls was both affected by and had effect on the sonic design of the exhibition. On one hand, the temporary walls become a design tool to prevent the works from disturbing each other. On the other hand, the walls create a dramatical sound scape that takes you to the different corners in the built-up niches in the lower gallery (Figure 24). As those niches are not silent proof closed rooms or small auditoriums as mentioned above, the overall sound scape of the exhibition is audible in the whole exhibition space. As the works are played simultaneously and the soundtrack varies in intensity, it creates a sound scape in waves, where the sound from one work replaces another. In altering the exhibition space with the temporary walls, the lay out