Brook Andrew: The Cell

Overview

You'll need to take off your shoes, store anything sharp and change into one of the hooded suits that hang beside The Cell before you're allowed into it. This reflects the imprisonment aspect of the title, while the whooshing breath-like noises of the machinery and geometric regularity of the designs (like something under a microscope) allude to its biological connotations. The repetition of the pattern on the suits has the effect of camouflaging the audience into the work, implying natural mimicry, defence and also military uniforms. Crawling through a tunnel, uniformed, one of at most six people, suggests that The Cell could be some sort of resistance or terrorist group.

I know, all that from the title. There's a reason it's called conceptual art, you guys. As to what it physically is, well, it's a 12x6x3 metre inflatable, with tiny portholes. The designs on the walls and suits are op-artish enlargements of motifs from the art of the Wiradjuri people. While you do get a sort of spring happening, it's not the bouncing-off-the-walls childhood sensation. It's quite peaceful inside, but at the same time the etiquette of it is pretty awkward: what do you do? How long do you stay?

The Cell makes you hyper-aware of your own behaviour and interactions as it makes references to Big Social Ideas, and you get bounced around and made a part of it. I'm still kinda dizzy.