Bitter Medicine #01, 2020
Curated by Carl De Smet
PUFF OUT is a Bitter Medicine to museums under lockdown, initiated by the artist duo :mentalKLINIK and curated by Carl De Smet for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Belgrade as the first host.
As we are now more online than ever, :mentalKLINIK offers us a bitter pill to fill the abysmal void of the emptied-out, shuttered museums. :mentalKLINIK’s PUFF OUT installation is made to be physically set in the premises of the museum, but extended onto digital platforms.
The scene is devoid of humans and occupied by six robot hoovers, programmed to detect dust in a room covered with heaps of glitter particles. Creating their own drawings and spreading the glitter throughout the empty space, they create an after- party atmosphere that celebrates the maxim: “Nothing will remain the same”.
Over-stimulated, chasing every speck of glitter, the hoovers are filmed and broadcasted live at all times on the museum’s website. As they twirl tirelessly in real time and the footage streams non-stop, a spatial dialectic emerges, redefining the concepts of viewership, exhibition-making and museum-going. This migration to the web overcompensates for a broken reality – one that can be observed via museum websites, catering to a collective voyeuristic instinct.