Air Wall or the section museum (after Marcel Broodthaers).

Roger McDonald

This air wall was designed and produced by Roger McDonald in 2001. There are currently two walls. One with a width of 2.5m and one with a width of 5.0m. Both walls have a height of 2.0m. They are made from white semi transluscent vinyl and can easily be folded up. Inflation is done using an electrical blower.

The proposal offered in the section museum utilises the technology of inflatable structures. The inflatable designs of Verner Panton or Quasar Khahn during the 1960s are significant pre-cursors. Khahn in particular developed a 'philosophy'[ around inflatables in which he claimed their transparent nature as pointing towards a more 'open' world. The 1968 exhibition "Structures Gonfables" at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris, marked an important point in the history of inflatable design, showing various proposals for living capsules and houses amongst other items.

Inflated air wall in Moving Collection at AIT Hour Museum.

Air filled structures have a capacity to bend and move, and this is one of its advantages as a temporary structure. I was interested in the idea of filling a skin with air to make it expand and therefore have a structural integrity. This operation of filling and expanding seems to offer a different conception of how structures can function within space.

An important intention behind the section museum is its presentation of a radically different support frame on which or against which art can be seen. It deliberately asserts a complete difference to what has come to be referred to as the 'white cube': thus it is made of soft materials, it is a transluscent white and it has a capacity to bend or distort easily. In this, it perhaps follows in the wake of Kurt Schwitter's Merzbau, El Lissitsky's Kabinett der Abstrakten or more recent manifestations such as Gregor Schneider's 'ur' house and BANK's experimental exhibitions. In the case of Schwitter's, Lissitsky and BANK the art of other people were incorporated into their spaces, whilst in Schneider's case the work is unto itself. It is important to remember that all exhibitions create their own environments and spaces in which to show art. For instance, the First Papers of Surrealism in New York in 1942 showed art works in an elaborately constructed set designed by Marcel Duchamp using string. Likewise, the Lyon Biennale of 2000 curated by Jean Hubert-Martin incorporated lengths of blue curtain throughout the exhibition areas instead of hard walls. In both these cases, unusual display strategies were initiated by the exhibition organisers. In the case of Schwitters or the section museum, this is inverted, so that a permanently different exhibition space is offered to artists and works. In other words, a white walled room is not transformed for a temporary period, but rather a significantly different kind of exhibition space is proposed from the outset.

This means that the section museum will naturally not be 'universal', attending to the needs of all types of art works. For instance, large paintings cannot be hung on it. Rather it can operate within a sphere which is perhaps part art work and part exhibition space; it does not assert a neutrality but is highly individualistic. In this sense it may pose similar questions to that of specific sites, where art is placed, such as outdoors or in disused buildings. And yet, a significant difference of the section museum to notions of site specificity is that it presents a repeatable specificity rather than one which is fixed to a single location. It therefore proposes a new frame, like the museum, for art to be shown in. After all, the white walled gallery space has developed as the assumed frame for how we encounter art. It is repeated in numerous galleries and museums across the world, as the 'natural' language for the art space. The section museum asserts that this is merely one, albeit very functional, frame. The proposals of Schwitter's, Lissitsky and indeed many so called outsider artists who have developed unique exhibition spaces, attest to other possibilities.

One obvious direction the section museum can operate in is to show works of a light-weight nature. This may be drawings on paper, textile based objects or light based projections. Alternatively, it may be used, not as a support frame for showing art works, but as a boundary marker for actions, performances or meetings. In this sense it would merely provide a symbolic presence of a museum which did not actually show art per se, but rather operated as a junction for other activities.

Its most full realisation would be as a structure that could accommodate all of these proposals and more: mirroring its material and having the capacity to bend, distort and de-flate.

Inflated air wall in Akira Mori installation at AIT Hour Museum.

Air wall being inflated for Moving Collection at AIT Hour Museum.