PlusMinus
video / performance, 29'59"2014
In PlusMinus I perform repeatedly for 29 minutes and 59 seconds one ritual/superstition that is supposed to bring good luck and one that brings bad luck. In each performance the actions cancel each other out. In the end I will have the same amount of good or bad luck as in the begining.
In the 1940s B.F. Skinner, an American psychologist, behaviorist and social philosopher examined in an experiment the formation of superstition in pigeons.
Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions. Actions or behavior like turning counter-clockwise or flapping its wings. They were influencing their luck (getting food) with their "rituals". There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances.
Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions. Actions or behavior like turning counter-clockwise or flapping its wings. They were influencing their luck (getting food) with their "rituals". There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances.
(Skinner, B. F. "'Superstition' in the Pigeon", Journal of Experimental Psychology #38, 1947.)
PlusMinus_I, Video / Performance, 29'59"
PlusMinus_II, Video / Performance, 29'59"
Exhibition viewMuseum of Newest Art (MONA), Poznan, Poland
Groupshow, "Interconnections_1"
Exhibition viewMuseum of Newest Art (MONA), Poznan, Poland
Groupshow, "Interconnections_1"