Is an artist needed for art to occur? Where does art come from, or more precisely, where does art happen? Is it a gift given from someone's secret inner world to us or rather like a reminder, a signal that merely touches what we already share?
Art is a dialogue between the artist and the observer and thus much of its intriguing meaning comes from the tension as well as synchrony between people, just like in any relationship. Reading a poem to someone you love or to someone you fear translates the poem to two different pieces.
Though often hidden in the modern society, we share two types of communication: Where science and common language aims at transporting information, art and mystical language aim at resonance due shared essence: Art makes us chime by tuning us to the same inner frequency, revealing and making use of our deep similarity as human beings. This makes the process of art a symmetrical one: Art is happening between two people, both experiencing familiarity in each other's being. Who's the painter and who's being painted for, doesn't matter in the end.
To illustrate this resonance-nature of art, I set out to explore the power of mere perception in creating art. This was done by tricking people to think they are in an art exhibition and using a "cumulative-analysis" technique to build up an imaginary artist as well as the meaning of the pieces of his art, both which emerged from the perception of observers alone.
Now I welcome you to meet "Bertil Marten", a Finnish post-war installation modernist, an emergent artist, unconsciously created by the reflective crowd.