Bruce Nauman’s Cooridor works can only be experienced with the body and they play off of our multisensory response to things like claustrophobia, sensory deprivation and sensory confusion.
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In a gallery setting, corridors link together the white cubes where we view art. Rarely are they the works themselves. However, in among Bruce Nauman‘s varied, and seminal output of works, are a series of pieces that take this architectural feature and transform it into an exhibit.
Nauman began making his corridors in 1969; the first was built as a prop for a video, yet he soon introduced them into gallery settings, allowing the audience to walk down them, and, in so doing, put in their own performance. These pieces are simple, gypsum-walled walkways, into which the artist sometimes introduces lights, video cameras and monitors, or speakers; some were too narrow walk down; others were wedge shaped.
Live/Taped Video Corridor
In the closed-circuit installation «Live/Taped Video Corridor», a study from the Performance Corridor work group, Nauman set two monitors above one another at the end of a corridor almost ten meters long and only 50 cm wide. The lower monitor features a videotape of the corridor. The uppermost monitor shows a closed-circuit tape recording of a camera at the entrance to the corridor, positioned at a height of about three meters. On entering the corridor and approaching the monitors, you quickly come under the area surveyed by the camera. But the closer you get to the monitor, the further you are from the camera, with the result that your image on the monitor becomes increasingly smaller. Another cause of irritation: you see yourself from behind. Moreover, the feeling of alienation induced by walking away from yourself is heightened by your being enclosed in a narrow corridor. Here, rational orientation and emotional insecurity clash with each other. A person thus monitored suddenly slips into the role of someone monitoring their own activities.
