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The Head As The Seat Of Reason. TÄT, Berlin | January 2011

'The Head As The Seat Of Reason' is one of an ongoing series of site-specific projects in which the artist invites people to occupy and respond to environments that are seemingly void and unaccounted for. These investigations have taken place in spaces of varying intrigue and contexts: a vacant shop, a corner of an artist’s studio, a recently closed smoking room of a hospital and an urban wasteland.

At TÄT Foster framed an inaccessible space within the architectural fabric of the gallery as a valid site for investigation. Over the past weeks the artist created access to the space and proceeded to welcome visitors and specifically invited guests from a range of disciplines and backgrounds to occupy the space. In this case ‘a headspace’ - a space only big enough for one person’s head. Recorded by a Dictaphone and prompted by a list of questions, people were requested to respond to the environment through the use of spoken language. The artist arrived with no great knowledge of the space; the principle of the enquiry is in essence asking the question “what can you tell me about here?”; intrigued by what this space will evoke for the individual and what will come through their impulses, choice of words, and associations. This constructed situation is an attempt to start a psychology in motion, whether this will be an environment conducive to reverie or that leads to absurdity. Speaking ones thoughts in the dark to the inside walls of a window shutter cover built from solid wood is unpredictable.

The documentation of the audio recordings was fed back into the space for both participants and audiences to encounter the results of the ongoing enquiry. In the case of ‘The Head As The Seat Of Reason’ Foster creates a partial feedback loop; a CCTV camera installed in the space linked to a projector transmits a live feed of the space. The live feed is juxtaposed with audio recordings (updated daily) of the intimate encounters of the participants. This manipulation presents a multi-layering in which past encounters now narrate the present image.

Sticking to ‘aesthetics of necessity’ the basic building blocks in the space; an ad hoc stage, seating area and projection screen are assembled from items and leftovers from past exhibitions found in the gallery and gallery storeroom. This project underscores a core theme in Foster’s work that investigates use value, ecology and perception of space. At the same time this investigation accumulates new kinds of intrigue; as participants can witness a space through a physical intervention that has the ability to provide osmosis, yet also points towards an act of self-dematerialization.

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