You Make Your Own Bed
Air
is the new commons….We all breathe air…We are the air we breathe…In The
Conscience of Words, Elias Canetti declares: “To nothing is man so open as to
air. He moves in it as Adam did in Paradise…Air is the last common property. It
belongs to all people collectively. It is not doled out in advance, even the
poorest may partake of it.” However, today not all air is equal. It is no
longer pure nor free, and what is conditioned space inevitably has become
conditional space. Can we subvert the air by turning its exhaust into something
productive? By creating tension between the private and public domains it
divides?
You Make Your Own Bed uses a readymade air mattress and exhausted air from an outtake vent located in front of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center. What is typically considered waste becomes a source of comfort for the “breather,” who literally lies on her own bed of air. The bed, like air, has an ambivalent nature – it is the site of birth, sleep, sickness, loneliness, love, and death. It has the potential for being a safe refuge or a place filled with danger. Installing the air mattress within the public domain not only metaphorically addresses the sense of commons in the air we all breathe, but it also accentuates the state of the “breather’s” vulnerability to the gaze and actions of passersby.
The air mattress along with cheap materials, such as double-sided tape, yellow plastic covering, a wood frame, metal hardware, and a pipe, this installation would be easy to assemble and transport for occupation of other sites. Looking beyond Harvard’s institutional borders, this work also raises the question: what would it mean to lie on a bed of air from New York City? Or Paris? Or Beijing? As the common saying goes, “You make your own bed, now lie in it.”
You Make Your Own Bed uses a readymade air mattress and exhausted air from an outtake vent located in front of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center. What is typically considered waste becomes a source of comfort for the “breather,” who literally lies on her own bed of air. The bed, like air, has an ambivalent nature – it is the site of birth, sleep, sickness, loneliness, love, and death. It has the potential for being a safe refuge or a place filled with danger. Installing the air mattress within the public domain not only metaphorically addresses the sense of commons in the air we all breathe, but it also accentuates the state of the “breather’s” vulnerability to the gaze and actions of passersby.
The air mattress along with cheap materials, such as double-sided tape, yellow plastic covering, a wood frame, metal hardware, and a pipe, this installation would be easy to assemble and transport for occupation of other sites. Looking beyond Harvard’s institutional borders, this work also raises the question: what would it mean to lie on a bed of air from New York City? Or Paris? Or Beijing? As the common saying goes, “You make your own bed, now lie in it.”
Location
Carpenter Center, Cambridge, MA
Year
2017
Type
Installation
Team
Maia Peck
Carpenter Center, Cambridge, MA
Year
2017
Type
Installation
Team
Maia Peck