Amy Potts Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist’s exhibition ‘eyeball massage’ featured in the Hayward Gallery was the most striking to me that day. The large installation transforms mundane objects into powerful visual art that visitors can experience by walking through the exhibition surrounded by projectors of films. Pipilotti Rist’s work represents a new type of art which speaks only through visual art, where literature is less important and the artistic images are important. It transgresses the old concept of art as now she uses film to display visual art not in the traditional sense. I think the show is successful for creating the illusion of dreaming. One piece which was the most striking to me was ‘Atmosphere and Instinct’ this piece featured in one the cubicles in the ladies toilets displaying a woman in a red dress seeming to cry out for help to the viewer, this breaks down the boundaries in art and yet again creates a personal connection between the art itself and the visitors of the gallery. To me this piece was the most influential as it sets of other emotions like the idea of forgiveness and punishment. Rist wanted to display these emotions and how far people will go to punish themselves or others for mistakes made. Rist’s work seems like a drastic study of visual art where the entire exhibition is based on film and moving images, it displays how powerful film can be as the exhibition is curated in a way that invites the public to not be passive viewers but to actively walk through the art.