Abstract
In her introduction to Artificial Hells, Claire Bishop defines participation in art as that, “… in which people constitute the central artistic medium and material, in the manner of theatre and performance”. It is interesting then to consider whether artworks are things in and of themselves, or if they only actually exist as art in terms of the relationships they have with their audience; perhaps only in terms of the roles performed by the audience as they enter into discourse with the presented situations. The set of work presented here seeks to research these notions along with the idea of where things sit on the spectrum of “closed” or “open” works as suggested by Umberto Eco, and the idea of art as inherent autobiographical trace.
