On Hijacking LED Walls

Abstract

In recent years, the LED walls originally used in outdoor spaces by advertising companies to extend the consumption of images in our daily life have been appropriated by artists and installed in gallery spaces. When viewed nearby or when walking around them, LED walls become in some way dysfunctional: The images fade, points and color distortions appear, and the spectacle of the machine interruputs our habitual viewing patterns. This article focuses on three recent works which disrupt immersive viewing regimes through what I call “hijacking” advanced LED technology. Lucy Raven (Tucson, AZ, USA), Demolition of a Wall (Album 2), 2022. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Helsinki, Finland), Potentiality for Love, 2018. Marco Fusinato (Sidney, Australia), Desastres, Australian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2022. These three artists use the sculptural and spectacular effect of freestanding LED walls to call attention to our habitual capitalist relation to LED technology. Through performative or narrative pieces, these artists deploy poetic and artistic effects to explore the politics of technological immersion in capitalist societies.

Keywords

• contemporary art
• LED walls
• video installation
• sound installation
• immersion
• consumer society