Artist50: Joshua Kirsch

Joshua Kirsch has brought movement and interaction to the forefront with his work. His Concentricity piece is definitely one of the most visceral and responsive installations I've ever seen. According to his article in thisiscolossal, "much of his work stems from the desire when entering an art museum to touch and interact with the exhibitions which is generally not possible".

This emphasis on physical interaction in art is something I can really get behind. Tactile interaction with art is something too commonly overlooked. This very primitive, basic type of interaction adds an entirely new dimension to the piece. Tangent incoming... But I certainly wouldn't limit this to just touch. Smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing...too often these are each relegated to various different types of art - perfume, cooking, visual art, 3D art, music, respectively. Why the separation? Logistically and conceptually it would likely be difficult, but when all senses are excited in a cohesive, deliberate manner by a single source - a piece of art, in this case - the whole experience of theses senses combined is almost certainly going to be greater than the sum of those separate senses.

Either way, Kirsch has done something new and innovative that will hopefully send reverberations through the art and design worlds to get some more pieces of this nature going.