University of Hertfordshire   2005/2006

Noemi Lakmaier

As an installation Artist and a wheelchair user I have a strong interest in manipulated space and peoples' responses to it. In my past work I have had the opportunity to observe viewers' emotional and sometimes even physical responses to installations. My Artist Access to Art Colleges period at the University of Hertfordshire gave me the opportunity to deepen my theoretical understanding of these responses. After a period of research in the library on installation art, spatial construction, the viewer and multi-sensory elements in art, I had planned to build an installation within the college involving students and staff in the creative process and compiling their responses to the work in conclusion to the project. But it was not long until the bureaucratic reality of the university caught up with me, drawing me back to my fascination with the Kafkaesque absurdity of the institution, changing the process and outcome of my project drastically. I started to look at the architecture and functionality of the space I was working in, focusing on overlooked, matter of fact elements in particular and began to think of ways to change, simplify and exaggerate what already existed. Through a series of photographs and drawings I arrived at miniature spaces within spaces, intricate, miniature, alternative realities hidden in walls and electrical boxes that can be viewed through air-vents and plug-sockets only.