Vito Acconci
HEAD CAPSULE
(FOR MIND & BODY) 1984

Wood, Formica
8’ x 12’ x 9'

 
 

 

A capsule-like unit, in the general shape of a head (top of the head, ears). The capsule can be placed in any room, where it can be used as furniture.

The basic head-shape is 8 feet high, 12 feet long, and 3 feet deep, with a half-head adjunct adding 3 feet of depth on each face, opposite ends.

Cut into the faces of the capsule are enclosures in the shape of human figure, in seated positions. The enclosures provide seats for people: a person can fit himself/ herself inside a seated cut-out figure. In the central head-shape, there are two seats (two figures) facing each other, but blocked off from each other and entered from opposite sides. (The cut-outs might be joined at the feet, so the toes of one person. -- sitting inside the figure on one side -- might be touching the toes of the person who has entered the figure from the other side. ) In each of the half-head adjuncts, a seat (a figure) faces outward.

On one face of the capsule, the exterior surfaces are shiny white (possibly frosted white Plexiglas); inside the enclosures, the seats and seat-backs are shiny black (again, some black plastic). On the opposite face of the capsule, those surfaces are reversed, black outside and white inside. In each frontal enclosure, facing out, the sides and top are mirrored; in each side-profile enclosure, facing the other, the- front and side and top are mirrored.

Inside each enclosure, television equipment is embedded within the mirrored walls. Inside one frontal enclosure, there's a video monitor at one side of the head, a video camera at-the other side, and a TV set overhead; inside the other frontal enclosure, there's a video camera at one side of the head, a TV set at the other side, and a video monitor overhead. Inside one" side-profile enclosure, there's a video monitor at the side of the head, a TV set overhead, and a video camera in front; inside the other side-profile enclosure, there's a TV set at the side of the head, a video camera overhead, and a video monitor in front.

Sitting on the seat, in any one of the enclosures, activates a mechanism that turns on the TV set (regular programming, image and sound) in one of the other enclosures. When a person sits inside one enclosure, the image of that person (either the top of the head, or the side of the face, or the front of the face), as well as the voice (if he/she chooses to speak), is transferred by means of the video camera onto a video monitor in another enclosure.

Outside the capsule, along the edge on each side, there's a bench between the ears. This seating area is, in effect, 'out of the picture' (there's no video camera or monitor here) -- though the interior surfaces of the ears might be mirrored, and there might be a window-like cut-out at the back of each bench that opens onto the back of the head of each figure in side-profile.


 

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