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by Seth Rogovoy
NORTH ADAMS, Mass., Aug. 15, 1996 -- Deep in the bowels of an art studio located in the historic Beaver Mill on Beaver Street in North Adams, adjacent to the Contemporary Artists Center which he founded in 1990, visionary artist and entrepreneur Eric Rudd has created an exhibition that attempts to combine the ordinary, museum-going experience with the sensory-overload, visceral thrill of a theme-park ride.
Walt Disney, meet the Met.
Rudd's Dark Ride Project has been quietly open to the public since mid-July. Since that time, a small but steady stream of visitors have stumbled upon this unique exhibition which seeks no less than to transform the manner in which art is displayed and observed.
On one level, Dark Ride is a vanity show of the sculptures Rudd has been creating from space age-materials for the last two decades. The Washington, D.C., native constructs these playful, amorphous and biomorphic objects -- made of polyurethane foam and Lexan, a polycarbonate plastic made by G.E. Plastics -- in a post-modern version of glass-blowing.
On another level, however, the exhibition has less to do with these forms and more to do with the manner in which they are presented. For instead of merely mounting his artworks in a traditional, white-walled gallery, what Rudd has done with the Dark Ride Project is to create a unique environment constructed specifically for the display of these works.
"I'm putting my art in an environment it belongs in," said Rudd, speaking recently to a visitor at his studio. "It wouldn't fit in a white box."
The highlight of the Dark Ride Project is a ride in the "Sensory Integrator," a robotic chair which takes the viewer on a stimulating, 10-minute ride through a hidden gallery of shapes, sounds, lights, colors and some physical thrills. The chair is a one-of-a-kind vehicle designed and built specifically for this show. It includes a helmet- like device that when locked into place limits the viewer's field of vision to only a small box directly in front of the eyes. Thus, you can only see what the helmet allows you to see, and by extension, what the artist wants you to see.
Through the manipulation of lighting -- lights blink on and off throughout the ride, typically for only fractions of a second -- and distance -- the chair alternately brings the viewer close to the objects, steers around them and abruptly jerks away from them -- the viewer has virtually no choice -- other than to close his eyes -- over what to look at.
In addition, the helmet pipes in electronic, new-age style music as a sort of soundtrack to the exhibit, which is viewed in total isolation -- in and of itself a totally new and unique way of experiencing art.
With no decisions to make about what to see or for how long to look at any one object, and with no one to talk to (other than the docents who monitor the viewer via a built-in microphone in the helmet, so the viewer can call for help in case of a problem) about what one is looking at, the viewer is left alone with just a hyper-realized experience -- and his thoughts, if he has any at all.
Rudd refers to this as "controlling the experience in order to heighten it" and "focusing the viewer's attention." As we normally are not used to someone making all of our sensory decisions for us -- which way to move, what to look at, how long to stay in one place -- it is a disorienting experience at first. Deprived of any sense of perspective, depth perception and contrast, the viewer experiences the ride as something akin to pure, unmediated sensation. At the same time, it raises obvious questions about what it means to "view" art, and forces an examination of the methods we use to engage with works that are labeled "art."
Rudd says that the experience of going through the artwork becomes the artwork itself. "Instead of viewing an `Eric Rudd,' you go through one," he said. The exhibition doesn't begin or end with the ride itself. The entrance to the studio at the northern corner of the converted Beaver Mill introduces the viewer to the environmental experience: shrouded in darkness, surrounded by cave-like walls in which video monitors welcome the visitor to what lies beyond. Further inside, a 14-minute video narrated by curator and museum director Walter Hopps -- boldly titled "A Future For Art" -- attempts to place the Dark Ride Project in an art-historical context.
The explanatory videos are a way to use multi-media, user-friendly technology to replace old-fashioned wall text. "How can you walk into a museum if you don't know what's going on?" asks Rudd. "Here you don't need to be an art expert to understand it." The Hopps video is available in English, Spanish, German and Japanese, and it is also signed for the hearing-impaired. Rudd says all of these measures were taken to insure that the exhibition is accessible to everyone, including educationally-, socially-, linguistically- and physically- impaired persons.
Proceeding further, the viewer comes to the gateway station. Up to this point, the exhibition is free, but to continue into the galleries and on the Dark Ride itself the viewer needs to buy a ticket.
Rudd explains that even charging admission is part of the overall concept. Rudd traces it back to his reaction against the commercial art scene, where "decorators help you buy the art and hang it over a couch," he said.
"I've always been a believer in artists having a much more aggressive role in how their work is made, shown and what happens to it," Rudd said, rather than the situation where artists chase down dealers, begging them to "look at my slide, show my work, squeeze me into that little box in New York City where there's half a million artists and only 150 galleries."
Rudd hopes that by setting up an alternative to the conventional way in which contemporary art is exhibited, he will inspire other artists to take things into their own hands. "What I'm doing here is I'm basically saying I'm not selling you my art now, I'm renting it," he said. "I'm not Mass MoCA. I don't have twenty-million dollars from the state. I don't have the Clark's endowment or the Williams College's endowment. So when you enter here, you pay. If this exhibition makes it on its own, it could create an example for scores of other artists to skip the distributors and the wholesalers and go right from the studio to the final museum product."
Beyond the gateway lies the Dark Ride itself and two other exhibition galleries that viewers walk through. A ticket to the ride and galleries costs $10; entrance to the galleries only costs $6. On weekdays there is a 25% discount available for senior citizens, students and Berkshire county residents with identification. Children under 6 are admitted free with an adult, but the ride itself -- which like the amusement rides it is loosely based on can be somewhat scary -- is not recommended for children under 12 "or for viewers who may have trouble with a motion ride in the dark."
After the ride itself, which is a sort of combination dreamscape, funhouse and chamber of horrors -- in proportions depending on one's own sensibility, no doubt -- the viewer enters a large, dark sculpture gallery on his own two feet. For the first time, the viewer has some idea as to the scale of the objects glimpsed during the ride. In addition to revealing the shapes and sizes of the sculptures themselves, the sculpture gallery also serves as a contrast to what came before. The viewer cannot help but appreciate the newfound ability to linger before an object, to look around and behind it. Here too, however, Rudd manipulates the environment, controlling the lighting and restricting viewers to blue-lit footpaths. Further inside is the "Purity Vacuum," a white-walled, foam cave that induces a peaceful serenity after what came before.
Finally, the path leads the viewer to a white-walled, traditional gallery -- albeit one that still restricts the viewer to a specific path -- where Rudd's sculptures take on a whole different aspect, and where the viewer becomes reacclimated to reality as he previously knew it.
The Dark Ride Project is an ambitious undertaking that Rudd says has been nine years in the making. It raises serious questions about the need of artists to control and manipulate the experience of their art, and makes boastful claims.
"I am my own curator, and this is how I want audiences to see my work," said Rudd. They will have that opportunity Wednesdays through Sundays, from 11 to 5, "for the indefinite future," according to a press release.
Support for Dark Ride was provided by United Coatings-Sherwin Williams Co., G.E. Plastics, Mobay Corporation, North Adams State College, Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, Berkshire Training and Employment Program, Walter Hopps, Martin Hatcher (Technical Designer), Joe Piazzo (NASC Media Center), Jonathan Aceto (Music), Joyce Wing (Project Manager) and other participants and interns.
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