Black Glass: an Installation by Mike Bray, October 22 – November 12, 2011. Installation view. Springfield, Oregon: Ditch Projects, 2011.
Revolution exists on the line between passive participation and the willful creation of spectacle. The Rolling Stones’ performance at the Altamont Free Concert was a doubled instance of revolution, a spectacle with power usurped by the spectacular violence of its audience. This tragic moment in hippie history, an instance redefining the heritance of the love generation, also redefined the relationship between audience and performer. It was a moment in which revolt rendered the spectacle impotent, shifting the spectacular from object to subject, empowering the audience beyond veneration. Mike Brays’s Black Glass recreates, measures, and reassesses this distance between spectacle and audience. Using film stills and press clippings towards a historical accuracy, the stage from The Altamont Free Concert is recreated and offered to new styles of participation. The fourth wall of the stage is doubled by a mirroring plane, reflecting the spectacle back onto itself, implicating the participant and removing the possibility of a passive viewer.
Courtesy of Ditch Projects.
Artist Credit: Mike Bray
Exhibition: Black Glass: an Installation by Mike Bray, October 22 – November 12, 2011