VAST/O Exhibition (De)Construction: Exploring the Potentials of Augmented Abstract Comics and Animation Installations as a Method to Communicate Health Experiences

This chapter critically reflects on the methodological potentials of augmented abstract comics and animation installations to positively impact public awareness of the lived experience of mental health through emotive responses to the installation VAST/O. In developing our approach, we employed Astrid von Rosen’s (Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History 86:1, pp. 6–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2016.1237540, 2017) Warburgian methodology which was proposed as an “activist art history” giving space to the marginalised, voiceless, and the undefinable experiences that are denied in a canonised telling of Art History and evade it static conclusions. We explore von Rosen’s (Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History 86:1, pp. 6–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2016.1237540, 2017) methodology in the space of the gallery through abstract comics where readers take on the performance of a museum visitor. Our proposed methodology breaks from the bound nature of comics to explore the architectural element of installations, namely, the visitor’s experience of the (de)constructed gutter. Rosalind Krauss’ (Grids. October 9, pp. 51–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/778321, 1979) seminal work, “Grids,” and the power of structured abstraction on the psychological experience of viewing and creating art within this well-known framework, is used to make sense of our own reliance on and rejection of the gutter, or grid, in augmented visitor experience. We advance the perspectives of researchers and artists in this chapter in merging theory with practice, and explore the advantages and challenges of our method.