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Thinking Outside the Box

Richard Baxter, a South Australian artist, has decided to truly think outside the box. Or is it, in the box? The artist will live in a sealed wooden crate over a period of seven weeks, periodically. As part of a self portrait exhibition at the Prospect Gallery in Adelaide from December 4th until January 22nd, 2006, Baxter felt that this was the most profound way to convey an image of the `self`. Although he will be completely hidden, the artist will be contactable via email and mobile phone and will respond to all communications while in the crate.

Although the Prospect Gallery runs the exhibition/competition specifically as a self portrait exhibition, the importance of Richard Baxter`s project is to show that the idea of `self` is a mental concept which is always limited to the imagination and is not really definable in pictures or space. When we think about others or even ourselves, the images and concepts formed are only ever blurred mental fragments and ideas which have very little reality. The real self always remains hidden and undefinable beyond images and concepts. Thus the artist will remain hidden from view, and the viewers will have to establish their own concepts of who or what is in the box and when, by accessing the limited information available. The box represents the outer exterior we all have, the body. It will never be really known when the artist is in the box, and when he is not. This further illustrates that what we think we are looking at, remains entirely in our imagination.

The box has been fitted with internet access and people around the world will be able to contact the artist in the box via a webpage to ask questions, read his diary, and view a live webcam showing the box from outside. During the times the artist is inside the box, interactivity will occur with people in the gallery and online, but at no time will the artist be visible other than a hand which may appear through the hole. Interactivity will include giving out cupcakes and small plastic animals through the hole, phoning the outside telephone to see if anyone answers, puppet shows, replying to emails, throwing out screwed up pieces of paper with poetry, pictures and Zen proverbs, etc., written on them. There will be no verbal response from the artist, other than via telephone.