Tobias Urban / Group VII, Oct 98 - Mar 99

FINAL PROJECTS

3/19/99 to 3/21/99

MAK Center at the Mackey Apartments, 1137 - 1141 South Cochran Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

Ali Janka and Tobias Urban, two members of the Austrian artists collaborative team "Gelatin" (now "Gelitin") introduced a new project, "The Human Elevator." In this work, Gelatin actively pursued environments conducive to "response and activation within a given space by turning it over to sensual experience, intensity, surprise, and delight." They created interactive situations which invited visitor participation by appealing to a playful sense of fun. In the summer 1998 at New York's P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, viewers could engage in a variety of games and sensual experiences provided by Gelatin in the outdoor sculpture garden, including a "sauna" and "refrigeration room." Exploiting L.A.'s beach-and-body culture, Gelatin's human elevator utilized the physical strength of body builders who, positioned on scaffolding, hoisted participants to the roof of the Mackey Apartments.