Big Brother

Luminal artists commonly require the viewer to push a button or step on a lever in order to activate their art, but Manhattan's Hans Haacke, 31 , has dreamed up an ingenious way of getting the viewer to turn on the art with out really trying. On display last week in Manhattan's Howard Wise Gallery was a small white room, lined on four walls with 28 electric bulbs at shoulder level. When the viewer walked into the room, the four lights centering on him lit up in unison. When he moved, other bulbs lit up, chasing him around the room in a Big Brotherly game of tag.

The mechanism was triggered by a series of hidden photoelectric cells paired with infra-red light projectors, which together created an invisible light grid. The cells were located directly beneath the light bulbs; when the viewer's body intercepted an infra-red light beam, the cell triggered a relay switch to the bulbs above. Haacke's Photoelectric Viewer Programmed Coordinate System furnished little to look at, but lots to ponder at the coffee shops. Does a tree make a noise when it falls in the forest if nobody is there to hear it? Does a work of art cease to exist, because no one is there to turn it on?

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