Well, well, well. So the Museum of Science and Industry in my beloved Chicago is looking for someone to live in the museum for a month. The exhibit is a furnished cube complete with bed, desk , and chairs furnished by CB2. I didn’t see a toilet or where this person would go to the bathroom. Anywho, the cube is clear and this museum inhabitant would be on display for visitors to observe. Unique, eh? Not so fast.
Let’s be clear who the trend setter was. In 2005, Burning Man funded an art installation called Dicky Box. For the whole event, someone nicknamed Dicky was housed in a 10 x 10 plexiglass cube in the middle of the open playa (i.e., with other art pieces). He was alone by himself with enough food and water to survive, viewed by the gazillion burners cycling through that part of the desert, with the only interaction with the outside world a small portal for him to receive things from visitors. Their art description said, “The Dicky Box will be an experiment of restriction in the world’s most unrestrictive community.” I visited him once, not paying too much heed to him. He was absorbed with writing something at the time. I wished I’d done more observing, but that was one of the years I was roving around the playa in a mushroom state—so I had a lot of other things going on in my head. “Wow, I see stars all around you!”
Check out Marina Abramovic – artists like her have been doing this for decades.