Emergency Mobile
While Emergency Room brings awareness and debate to a museum
audience, Emergency Mobile seeks to widen the format’s
accessibility, bringing Emergency Room’s core ideas into public
spaces. Emergency Mobile can be activated at any time as it is not
dependent on institutional access. The format brings the artworks
out into the open, with site specificity becoming a tool for artists
where they can address issues while they are happening. Emergency
Mobile extrapolates the key components of Emergency Room, using the
same exposure and debate approach to art exposition whilst
maneuvering the exhibiting site into the open, where the artworks
and artists engage with the public. For Emergency Room, the outside
world serves as a frame and contextual reference point for the
artworks, juxtaposing real emergencies against some of the settings
they emerge from.
Mobility can be seen to underscore several of Geoffroy’s formats,
comprising the backbone of his artistic theory in his 1989 Manifesto
“Moving Exhibition”, where integrating artwork into the public eye
was a main priority. Through impromptu exhibitions, self-exhibited
photographs and flash mobs, Geoffroy set out a formula that could
bring his art a greater viewership, wanting to transport his ideas
outside an expected audience, situating creativity within reality.
Emergency Mobile uses similar modes of expression, merging the
themes of Emergency Room with the manifesto’s public exhibiting
style. The mobility of the format creates more opportunities for
expression, giving Emergency Artists the chance to create, exhibit
and debate with a platform, without needing the approval of an art
institution first. Without an institutional platform, Emergency
Mobile is able to fill the gap in creation that opens once an
Emergency Room exhibiting period is over, enabling spontaneous
activations where necessary.
Artists often interact with the world around them, using the
physical environment as a canvas and fixture of the art itself. Set
in a public environment, Emergency Art can be used to provoke a
reaction from the greater population, circulating imagery that leads
to deeper reflection on issues. A piece by Danish-Dutch artist Nadia
Plesner in a Copenhagen Emergency Mobile highlighted and
questioned the notion of climate change having a simple, easy
solution by moving an oversized plug and chain next to a
construction hole. The plug and chain, drastically blown up to an
unrealistic size in order to cover the man-made hole, at first seem
comical and playful before becoming more unsettling as the meaning
behind it is pondered. The ridiculous size of the plug in comparison
to the constructed hole exposes how normalised man’s interference
with natural resources is, equating the seemingly harmless
construction hole with the greater impact of climate change and
exploring the unbalanced abilities of man-made fixes for man-made
problems. Out in the open, the artwork can reach people in their
everyday environments, perhaps changing their approach to examining
what they are used to seeing, showing a greater relationship between
current issues and people’s own realities.
Emergency Mobile has been activated at the Venice Biennale, in
Copenhagen and Johannesburg. The format draws on public stimulus,
inviting people to engage with the artworks and contribute to the
debate. Geoffroy may also hunt down passersby in the aim to involve
as many people as possible. Public attitudes and personal
connections are deeply imprinted on the debate, garnering the
attention of a varied audience who may have firsthand experience of
conflicts being addressed, increasing the complexity of debates and
contributing to a nuanced understanding of issues. Some themes may
spring up heated feelings if they are particularly contextually
relevant or controversial. In Copenhagen, artist Martin Martensen
Larsen changed the headings of a two sided walkway to read
“non-Roma” and “Roma”, intentionally using the passage to question
xenophobic attitudes towards media-bashed minorities, observing the
reactions of passersby to survey attitudes towards blatant
segregation. Initiating dialogue on the topic with members of the
public left the impression of slightly hostile attitudes towards
Roma people, based on negative media representation. The cultural
atmosphere in Copenhagen becomes a part of the artwork as people’s
filmed opinions contribute to the result and reception of the final
piece.
Other artworks may center around issues with a greater significance
outside the area, using site specificity to extract ideas and
opinions from a cultural locus, without alienating a global
audience. In Johannesburg, a South African artist split a cake in
parts marked by ownership, with labels such as “mine” and “for my
daughter” on it. While the theme of the piece was based on the
levels of economic inequality in South Africa, the sectioned off
slices linked to how much people give to others, this being
exemplified by a slice marked “yours” with the image of a 2 rand
coin on it, a coin usually given to beggars (Plesner, 2018). Many
members of the public glanced over the meaning of the work, becoming
more interested in eating a free slice of cake over distinguishing
the meaning behind the signs. While the cake made specific cultural
references to South Africa, the piece still speaks to themes of
greed and injustice with ramifications felt globally. Another work
in Johannesburg, a statement tent by Geoffroy, examined the role of
artists in gentrifying cities, resulting in the expulsion of
impoverished neighbourhood residents who can no longer afford rent
in newly gentrified locations. Placing the tent on the border of a
‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ neighbourhood conjunction, the tent, emblazoned
with the spray-painted statement “Don’t Trust Artists” uses the
socio-political reality of the location to trigger a deeper
investigation of how artists are used in society. In such a setting
as Johannesburg, the site specificity brings a particular tension to
the work that would be experientially absent otherwise.
Emergency Mobile was also conceptualised as a TV format, proposed as
a recurring program. Each episode would revolve around a different
artwork, showing the process, background information and debate of
the piece. A pilot was filmed and produced by Jella Bethmann, sent
to DR in Spring 2013, then later that year to TV2 and finally to DRK
in early 2014. The proposal was rejected by all three channels. The
aim of broadcasting the format was in accordance with Geoffroy’s
intentions of Emergency Room becoming a permanent feature of the
news, making the shift to television could familiarize audiences
with the format and encourage people to get involved in future
debates.
As a whole, Emergency Mobile manages to integrate the Emergency Room
format into a specific environment, using the atmosphere of the
location to offset and underpin topical issues with particular
relevance and aptitude. The Mobile format incorporates Geoffroy’s
previous exhibitory theories to widen the platform for Emergency Art
and situate artworks within reach of a diverse audience. As an
alternative to the regular Emergency Room format, it structurally
provides a similar outlet for artists while simultaneously
challenging the mode and form of the artworks. The site specificity,
total immediacy and open settings of Emergency Room Mobile align
with a greater possibility towards Emergency Room’s extrapolation as
a permanent feature within society.
text by Elena Hansen 28/05/2021
"EMERGENCY
MOBILE " / a
mobile version of
EMERGENCY
ROOM
emergency art about the Emergencies NOW in the public space
Some examples
Emergency Art Formats
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album
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