{"id":1436,"date":"2015-10-20T11:35:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T11:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simonings.com\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2018-10-19T14:02:56","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T14:02:56","slug":"im-not-alone-in-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=1436","title":{"rendered":"“I\u2019m not alone in here”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mist2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exploring Yellowbluepink\u00a0at Wellcome Collection in London<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Three bands of light \u2013 one pink, one yellow, one blue \u2013 illumine\u00a0the obliterating smog that artist Ann Veronica Janssens has used<\/a>\u00a0to fill the Wellcome Collection\u2019s first-floor gallery. This white-floored, white-walled, white-ceilinged room is trying very hard to disappear.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no directionality to the light here, so there is no sense of up or down. Your first sensation is not so much of falling as of leaning, or rather, of being leant, like a roll of carpet propped against a wall. This sensation, that you are suddenly operating out of kilter with the real geometry of the world, does not go away.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not alone in here. The other explorers are just about visible as they come within braking distance of me. The walls are another matter. The light reflected off the smog and the light reflected off the walls are indistinguishable. The walls may as well be made of glass for all that you can see them. Hitting one, I turn and move forward, running a finger along the hard surface to keep my orientation \u2013 and promptly bump my nose on another wall.<\/p>\n

\n
All the time I\u2019ve been thinking I\u2019m staring into the void, I\u2019ve actually been staring into a corner. I turn around to face into the room. At least, I think I do.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The room is a rainbow of mist. You step through an airlock arrangement into pink mist. If you walk straight ahead you will shortly pass through a yellow murk and into a blue cloud.<\/p>\n

Those loose synonyms \u2013 mist, murk and cloud \u2013 aren\u2019t just there to get what might have been a repetitive sentence past the subeditor. They have significance.<\/p>\n

\"Ann<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The pink zone is a true smog, the one that most obviously messes with your perceptions. It feels profoundly, viscerally wrong \u2013 faux psychoanalytical explanations of being trapped in a womb seem irresistible.<\/p>\n

The pink zone robs me of things to see, and also of the actual sensation of seeing. I am made painfully aware of the floaters scudding over my eyeball. It\u2019s probably best to avoid this show when you\u2019re recovering from the night before.<\/p>\n

The yellow middle zone is a queasy, transitional space, that\u00a0seems to shift<\/a>\u00a0depending on whether I approach it from the blue end of the room or the pink end. I find it hard to stop here.<\/p>\n

In the blue zone, in contrast to the pink zone, it is virtually impossible for me to imagine that I cannot see. There\u2019s still nothing around me, but the nothing feels familiar and natural. I\u2019m walking on air. What could possibly go wrong? As I think this, I stub my toe: another wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exploring Yellowbluepink\u00a0at Wellcome Collection in London   Three bands of light \u2013 one pink, one yellow, one blue \u2013 illumine\u00a0the obliterating smog that artist Ann Veronica Janssens has used\u00a0to fill the Wellcome Collection\u2019s first-floor gallery. This white-floored, white-walled, white-ceilinged room … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[616,78],"tags":[153],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-reviews-and-opinion","tag-colour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}