THE
GOLDEN NUMBER AND A 14,000-HERTZ ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
DOCUMENTA
8, KASSEL, GERMANY
AUGUST 1987
The
artist explores the esthetics of “invisible system artworks,”
virtual space, and the relationship between art and information
in a “latent” installation that only begins to take
on meaning elsewhere and after the fact, when its existence is revealed
in an article appearing in a major national newspaper published
in Cologne. The work in question is a 14,000 Hz electromagnetic
field produced by a series of tiny ultrasound transmitters secretly
placed along the perimeter of a rectangle based on the golden number
plotted on the floor of the building where the Documenta exhibition
is being held. The article announcing the work—written by
an art critic by prearrangement with the artist—is preceded
by a small classified ad appearing in the lost-and-found section
of the local newspaper the day before stating that a number of small
transmitters had likely been lost on the grounds of the Documenta
(8 of which were later returned to the artist by mail).