2. The Fluid Boundaries between Interpretation and Overinterpretation: Collecting, Conserving, and Staging Kinetic Art Installations

Interpretation and Overinterpretation

All professionals engaged with the conservation and restoration of kinetic objects are familiar with this tool: the screwdriver. This paper is about the use of a screwdriver; however, it does not explain how to use it to open a case and repair a motor. Rather, it employs it as a metaphor to explore the boundaries between interpretation and overinterpretation.

In 1962, Italian semiotician Umberto Eco published his Opera aperta (The Open Work) in which he theorizes about the category of “open works.” According to Eco, these works offer a constellation of elements that the interpreter can freely combine, so that different relationships and configurations are possible. He also identifies “inside the category of ‘open’ works a further, more restricted classification of works which can be defined as ‘works in movement’” (Citation: Eco 1989:12 [Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Translated by Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Originally published as Opera aperta (Milan: Bompiani, 1962).]). Referring to works by Alexander Calder, he writes: “Here there is no suggestion of movement: the movement is real and the work of art is a field of open possibilities” (Citation: Eco 1989:86 [Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Translated by Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Originally published as Opera aperta (Milan: Bompiani, 1962).]).

Eco’s considerations about the open work were contemporary to the development of kinetic art. Significantly, in the same year as The Open Work, Eco also wrote a text for the catalogue of the exhibition Arte programmata: Arte cinetica, opere moltiplicate, opera aperta, which opened in 1962 in Milan, elaborating on some of the concepts from his book. He wrote that the “work in movement” didn’t have a fixed form; it was mutable even if it followed “determined lines of orientation” (Citation: Eco 1962 [Eco, Umberto. 1962. Untitled essay in Arte programmata: Arte cinetica, opere moltiplicate, opera aperta. n.p. Milan: Olivetti. Exh. cat.]).

But if a kinetic work is a “field of open possibilities,” if we can perceive and interpret it in different ways, what should we conserve or restore? How can we keep the different options open and at the same time be sure that we stay in the field of possibilities given by the work without overstepping its boundaries? In other words: how can the limits of permissible scope for interpretation be defined?

In the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the Cambridge University in 1990, Eco looked back on The Open Work and commented:

When those pages were written, my readers mainly focused on the ‘open’ side of the whole business, underestimating the fact that the open-ended reading I was supporting was an activity elicited by (and aiming at interpreting) a work.… I have the impression that, in the course of the last decades, the rights of the interpreters have been overstressed (Citation: Eco 1990:143 [Eco, Umberto. 1990. “Interpretation and Overinterpretation: World, History, Texts.” Paper presented at the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Clare Hall, Cambridge University, March 7–8. Accessed August 29, 2016. http://tannerlectures.utah.edu​/ documents​/a-to-z/e​/Eco 91.pdf.]).

Eco drew a distinction between interpretation and “overinterpretation.” According to him, it is the task of the interpreter to formulate a “conjecture” about the “intention of the work.” An overinterpretation is an interpretation that does not consider what the work suggests independently of the author’s intention and the interpreter’s pragmatic purposes. An overinterpretation assigns to the work meanings that are not supported by a consistent analysis based on “economical” criteria (Citation: Eco 1990:162–82 [Eco, Umberto. 1990. “Interpretation and Overinterpretation: World, History, Texts.” Paper presented at the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Clare Hall, Cambridge University, March 7–8. Accessed August 29, 2016. http://tannerlectures.utah.edu​/ documents​/a-to-z/e​/Eco 91.pdf.]).

In relation to texts, Eco spoke of a “hermeneutic circle”: “the text is an object that the interpretation builds up in the course of the circular effort of validating itself on the basis of what it makes up as its result” (Citation: Eco 1990:180 [Eco, Umberto. 1990. “Interpretation and Overinterpretation: World, History, Texts.” Paper presented at the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Clare Hall, Cambridge University, March 7–8. Accessed August 29, 2016. http://tannerlectures.utah.edu​/ documents​/a-to-z/e​/Eco 91.pdf.]). Although Eco was referring to texts, his assertion applies to any form of art. That is: We make up the work with our interpretation and check our interpretation on the basis of the work we made up. It is a circular process indeed. In the case of art installations, our interpretation is always based on the results of the previous interpretations and presentations of the same installation (Citation: Caianiello 2013:217–18 [Caianiello, Tiziana. 2013. “Materializing the Ephemeral: The Preservation and Presentation of Media Art Installations.” In Media Art Installations: Presentation and Preservation; Materializing the Ephemeral, edited by Renate Buschmann and Tiziana Caianiello, 207–29. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.]).

Eco’s lectures provoked a heated discussion. The American philosopher Richard Rorty denied that a work can impart its intention and introduced the example of a screwdriver. He claimed that the use made of a screwdriver to tighten screws was not imposed by the object itself (Citation: Rorty 1992:103 [Rorty, Richard. 1992. “The Pragmatist’s Progress.” In Interpretation and Overinterpretation, edited by Stefan Collini, 89–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.]). We would have the right to interpret a screwdriver as something useful to open a package or to scratch our ears.¹ Eco replied:

A screwdriver can be inserted into a cavity and be turned inside, and in this sense could also be used to scratch one’s ear. But it is also too sharp and too long to be manoeuvred with millimetric care, and for this reason I usually refrain from introducing it into my ear. … I cannot use a screwdriver as an ashtray. I can use a paper glass as an ashtray but not as a screwdriver (Citation: Eco 1992:145–46 [Eco, Umberto. 1992. “Reply.” In Interpretation and Overinterpretation, edited by Stefan Collini, 139–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.]).

Eco intends to demonstrate that “it is not true that everything goes”:

During my lecture … I have stressed that it is difficult to say whether an interpretation is a good one, or not. I have however decided that it is possible to establish some limits beyond which it is possible to say that a given interpretation is a bad and far-fetched one (Citation: Eco 1992:144 [Eco, Umberto. 1992. “Reply.” In Interpretation and Overinterpretation, edited by Stefan Collini, 139–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.]).

In this context, Eco considered the “consensus of the community” as a reliable parameter for judging if an interpretation was far-fetched. People from the same culture attribute a certain meaning to particular forms and materials. Besides, according to Eco, objects can suggest how to interact with them, since their characteristics are associated with particular uses (Citation: Eco 1992:144–45 [Eco, Umberto. 1992. “Reply.” In Interpretation and Overinterpretation, edited by Stefan Collini, 139–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.]). You can use an object in different ways. In the case of the screwdriver, you can also use it to open a box or a bottle with crown cork, or to crush ice and so on. You cannot say that one of these uses is better than another. As long as it works, each use is acceptable. However, there are uses that are simply impossible: a screwdriver doesn’t have any cavities, so you cannot drink out of it and you cannot use it as an ashtray (fig. 2.1).

Acquiring, Reconstructing, and Staging Kinetic Art Installations

Kinetic installations cannot be experienced if they have not been installed: in order to have access to them, they must be fully assembled, with the kinetic components working. However, in some cases, museums and other institutions acquire kinetic installations that are dismantled and need to be reconstructed. Such reconstructions can be challenging.

The way we interpret and present a kinetic installation depends to some degree on our current state of knowledge about the artwork and its history. In turn, our interpretation of the work influences the form in which it will be staged in the future. Many questions arise when we acquire, reconstruct, or stage a kinetic installation, including:

• What exactly did our museum or institution acquire?

• Do we know which parts belong to the installation?

• Do we know how the work was installed in past presentations?

• Have we already seen the work installed, or do we know it only through documentation?

The following case studies illustrate the relevance of these questions.

Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana) by Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker

The artists Heinz Mack (b. 1931), Otto Piene (1928–2014), and Günther Uecker (b. 1930) often used the same kinetic light objects for different installations,² adapting the selection and arrangement of pieces to the spatial circumstances in which they were displayed. Because each single object also has an artistic value, the objects can be sold either as individual pieces or as part of an installation. Consequently, if a museum intends to buy a particular installation, it could discover that not all the objects in the original installation are still available, as some may have been purchased separately.

This happened in 1991, when the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf (today called Museum Kunstpalast) acquired Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana) (Light room [Homage to Fontana]), realized by Mack, Piene, and Uecker in 1964 for documenta 3 in Kassel.³ Two of the installation’s seven kinetic light objects had to be replicated: Mack’s Weißer Dynamo (White dynamo), which had been acquired by the Sprengel Museum Hannover in 1964; and Uecker’s Lichtscheibe (Light disk), which had been acquired by the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (Netherlands) in 1965 and is discussed below.

Uecker, who made a replica of Lichtscheibe in 1993, had realized different “light disks” since the beginning of the 1960s. These were disks covered with nails that were rotated by an electric motor, so that the nails threw constantly changing shadows on the disk’s white surface. When the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf acquired Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana), the Lichtscheibe in the Kröller-Müller Museum could not serve as a reference for the display of the replica because it no longer had a motor and was presented on the wall. The replica was finally displayed horizontally on the floor (fig. 2.2).⁴ However, while researching my doctoral dissertation at the documenta-Archive, I discovered a photograph (fig. 2.3) showing Lichtscheibe in a vertical position (Citation: Caianiello 2005:63, 86 [Caianiello, Tiziana. 2005. Der “Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana)” und das “Creamcheese” im museum kunst palast: Zur Musealisierung der Düsseldorfer Kunstszene. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.]). A video was later found of documenta 3 that clearly shows Uecker’s work positioned vertically and rotating on a tripod.⁵ Archival research can have a determinant role in the reconstruction and presentation of installations; however, it is difficult to say if the replica would have been made differently in the 1990s if the photograph or video had been known at that time. Regardless, it would have been helpful to know that Lichtscheibe had been displayed in a vertical position at documenta 3. I wouldn’t say, however, that Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana) was overinterpreted merely because the Lichtscheibe replica differed from the version displayed at documenta 3. The replica was validated by other installations in which Uecker had presented another light disk horizontally on the floor. In fact, the work might have been displayed vertically at documenta 3 because the space under the Fridericianum ceiling was narrow. There, the artists decided to collocate all the objects on one side of the room, leaving the other side free for visitors. There was no such constriction in the larger space of Museum Kunstpalast, so the Lichtscheibe could be positioned horizontally on the floor without hindering the visitors who explored the installation.

Heinz Mack’s Zwischen Himmel und Erde

Another example is the kinetic installation Zwischen Himmel und Erde (Between heaven and earth) that Mack realized in 1966 for the exhibition Zero in Bonn at the Städtische Kunstsammlungen Bonn. The work had not survived, and Mack replicated it in 2005 for the exhibition Light Art from Artificial Light at the ZKM in Karlsruhe (Citation: Weibel and Jansen 2006:122 [Weibel, Peter, and Gregor Jansen, eds. 2006. Light Art from Artificial Light. Karlsruhe: ZKM. Exh. cat.]). On that occasion, he changed the presentation form of the work and probably gave it its title. A photograph of the replica shows narrow nets (aluminum honeycombed structures) hanging from a black ceiling, which conceals the motors that rotate the nets at different speeds and in opposite directions. Metal sticks are inserted through the nets. Mirroring stainless-steel panels cover a platform at the bottom of the installation (fig. 2.4).

In 2008, Mack donated his replica, which was actually a new version of the work, to the ZERO Foundation, which presented it twice in the same form as 2005.⁶ However, for the 2016 exhibition Zero ist gut für Dich: Mack, Piene, Uecker in Bonn, 1966/2016 in the LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn,⁷ the foundation displayed Zwischen Himmel und Erde as it had been presented in Bonn in 1966. Thekla Zell, research associate at the ZERO Foundation, conducted in-depth archival research on Zero in Bonn and found many records about Mack’s original installation (Citation: Zell 2015:408-12 [Zell, Thekla. 2015. “The Ship ZERO Is Casting Out Its Anchor, and the Voyage Is Over: ZERO in Bonn and a Final Midnight Ball.” In The Artist as Curator: Collaborative Initiatives in the International ZERO Movement, 1957–1967, edited by Tiziana Caianiello and Mattijs Visser, 397–427. Ghent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle.]) (fig. 2.5), which had occupied an entire room at the exhibition. The floor was not covered with mirroring panels but with white glass wool that resembled clouds. There were no metal sticks inserted through the aluminum structures. Under the ceiling, white fabric concealed a metal construction with the motors. And visitors couldn’t enter the space: they could look at the installation only through two acrylic glass panels that closed the entrances.

Zero ist gut für Dich was intended to give viewers an idea of the installations that Mack, Piene, and Uecker had presented fifty years before, and our intention was to stage Zwischen Himmel und Erde as similarly as possible to its first presentation form. Mack approved this plan and was very pleased with the result. The installation of 2016, which made use of the nets and motors from 2005, was a kind of hybrid between the first and second versions of the work, and it inspired the following theoretical questions:

Did we overinterpret the work, giving priority to our intention rather than preserving the intention of the work that was transmitted to us?

In many cases, the first staging of an art installation does not correspond to its definitive presentation form, because the artist often experiments with different possibilities. The presentation form of a work usually becomes determined after a few attempts (Citation: Laurenson 2005:5 [Laurenson, Pip. 2005. “The Management of Display Equipment in Time-based Media Installations.” Tate Papers 3 (Spring). Accessed January 1, 2017. http://www.tate.org.uk​/download​/file​/fid/7344. Originally published in Modern Art, New Museums: Contributions to the Bilbao Congress 13–17 September 2004, edited by Ashok Roy and Perry Smith, 49–53. London: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 2004.]). Is it legitimate to go back to the first presentation form (or, more generally, to an earlier version) of a work? Or should we always preserve the latest state?

Is the presentation of the work in its first version comparable to the exposure of an older layer in the restoration of traditional works? Did we remove—so to speak—a pentimento of the artist presenting the work with glass wool instead of mirroring panels on the bottom?

Unlike the exposure of an older layer in a painting, our intervention with Zwischen Himmel und Erde is reversible. It doesn’t preclude us for showing the 2005 version in the future. However, our presentation will leave traces in the history of the work and will influence its future reception.

Otto Piene’s Lichtballett “Hommage à New York”

The exhibition Zero in Bonn also included Piene’s Lichtballett “Hommage à New York” (Light ballet “Homage to New York”) (fig. 2.6), a programmed multimedia installation, with light filaments and slides projected on colored screens, walls, and ceiling, fully immersing the viewer in an environment of color. Images of New York City are projected by two carousel slide projectors. Organic forms handpainted by the artist on glass slides are shown on the third projector. The projections are accompanied by sound consisting of noises recorded by Piene in the New York City streets.

The work had not been displayed since 1966 and was not mentioned in the literature. During her research on Zero in Bonn, Zell rediscovered the installation through black-and-white photographs and other archival records (Citation: Zell 2015:414-15 [Zell, Thekla. 2015. “The Ship ZERO Is Casting Out Its Anchor, and the Voyage Is Over: ZERO in Bonn and a Final Midnight Ball.” In The Artist as Curator: Collaborative Initiatives in the International ZERO Movement, 1957–1967, edited by Tiziana Caianiello and Mattijs Visser, 397–427. Ghent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle.]) and asked the artist if the whole work or parts of it still existed. Piene found five projection screens—fabric pieces dyed with spectral colors, sewn, and stretched on wooden frames—in his studio and donated them to the ZERO Foundation. After the artist’s death in 2014, we found color photographic documentation of the work. Piene’s chief assistant, Günter Thorn, then could identify numerous installation components and Piene’s original sketches in his studio (fig. 2.7), and we decided to reconstruct the installation for the exhibition Zero ist gut für Dich. In this case, basic information about the installation, which normally should be gathered during the preacquisition phase,⁸ could only be documented after we had staged the work for the first time.

Although we had found many components and much documentation of the installation, there was still room for interpretation in its reconstruction. As with Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana), some parts of the installation were no longer available because they had been acquired by other collections: four kinetic light machines—two Scheibenprojektoren (disk projectors) and two Lichttrommeln (light drums)⁹—had to be reproduced by Piene’s chief assistant. Moreover, we needed to reconstruct the synchronization of the machines, spotlights, and slide projectors. The synchronization was based on a score from 1962 that Piene had used to program the timer for his light ballets. The score was composed with seven time intervals, which had to be attributed to the installation’s devices.

Another point that left great leeway in decision making was which slides to duplicate for the installation. Piene’s assistant found 514 photographic slides (in color and black and white) in Piene’s studio after his death, and these likely included slides used by the artist for Lichtballett “Hommage à New York.” However, they were in boxes that had been vaguely labeled by Piene to indicate the slide subjects rather than the artworks he had used them for. We needed 160 slides for two projectors; that is, eighty for each slide magazine. Newspaper articles from 1966 that describe Piene’s installation always refer to color slides, so we first removed all the black-and-white images (even those with subjects related to New York City). Among the color images were fifty-four souvenir slides, of the type mass-produced for tourists, from different series that showed tourist attractions in New York. Because we could identify one of them, an image of the Empire State Building, on a photograph of the installation (fig. 2.8), we decided to use duplicates of all the souvenir slides. There was also a series of color slides that Piene had made of people on the streets of New York. We could identify a detail of one of them in a photograph of the installation, so we selected this series as well. A further clue was provided by a letter Piene wrote to the art critic Jasia Reichardt, in which he mentioned that he had used slides of “Broadway and 42nd Street” for the installation in Bonn.¹⁰ This prompted us to select the slides in a box labeled “Broadway.” Our slide selection seemed to be inherently consistent with the homage to New York, although it was impossible to reconstruct Piene’s exact slide sequence from 1966.

Choosing among Piene’s handpainted glass slides was more arbitrary. Piene’s assistant had found nearly 1,000 painted slides in the artist’s studio, and we didn’t have any reference point by which to select the eighty slides necessary for the installation.

Every reconstruction implies an interpretation. A certain range for decision making cannot be avoided even in the case of reconstructions based on the most comprehensive documentation (Citation: Caianiello 2013:212 [Caianiello, Tiziana. 2013. “Materializing the Ephemeral: The Preservation and Presentation of Media Art Installations.” In Media Art Installations: Presentation and Preservation; Materializing the Ephemeral, edited by Renate Buschmann and Tiziana Caianiello, 207–29. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.]). The label for Lichtballett “Hommage à New York” in the exhibition Zero ist gut für Dich indicated both the year of creation (1966) and the year of reconstruction (2016) to make clear that the presentation reflected today’s interpretation of the original work. In the reconstruction process, a relevant question was: which role did the different light machines and the single slides play in the overall effect of the installation? We interpreted the work as an immersive environment with simultaneous light and slide projections that didn’t allow a linear reading of the projected images. Consequently, we did not consider the single slides and light machines to be as important as the whole effect of the installation. This interpretation justifies the use of light machines that are not original and a certain freedom in selecting and ordering the slides. Setting up the installation with Piene’s chief assistant and discussing the reconstruction with other professionals¹¹ gave us the sense that our interpretation worked in the main, but is it definitely valid?

Conclusions

Although reconstructions leave considerable room for interpretation, they also present clear advantages: they bring forgotten works back to the collective memory and are an occasion to conduct in-depth research on the works and to exchange ideas with colleagues. They also ensure the conservation of original components.

A reconstruction or a new staging reflects an interpretation of the work. We will never be able to draw a clear demarcation line between a right and a wrong interpretation; therefore, we can never be sure if a reconstruction or a staging is correct, although the consensus of the scientific community can give us an orientation. An interpretation can always be invalidated by new archival findings, new methodological approaches, and by interpretations that are more economical and consistent. So we will never know if our conjecture is definitely valid. But we can know if it is definitely wrong, if “it is not the case” (Citation: Eco 2012 [Eco, Umberto. 2012. “Il realismo minimo.” La Repubblica, March 11. Accessed August 29, 2016. http://ricerca.repubblica.it​/repubblica​/archivio​/repubblica​/2012/03/11​/il-realismo-minimo.html.]). If we try to use a screwdriver as an ashtray, we will notice that it doesn’t work.

Notes