The beginning of a social revolution?

Desert and reality

Alfredo Barsuglia’s Social Pool is an eleven-by-five-feet wide pool in the Southern Cali­fornia desert, free for anybody to use. White, unadorned and geome­tric, it is formally remi­nis­cent of a Mini­ma­list sculp­ture. Located in a remote and scar­cely popu­lated geography – visi­tors are advised that several hours of driving from Los Angeles, plus a willing­ness “to walk a long distance to reach the pool from the nearest road,” are required to reach the desti­na­tion – its loca­tion nods toward the pheno­menon of large-scale Land Art instal­la­tions in deserts around the American West, like Walter de Maria’s The Light­ning Field in New Mexico, Robert Smithson’s famed Spiral Jetty, or Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels in Utah. Conceived in the 1970s by artists in and around New York, already then the epicenter of the contem­po­rary art scene, these works bore a critical response to and refusal of both the incre­asing commo­di­fi­ca­tion and insti­tu­tio­na­liza­tion of art and the rampant destruc­tion of the ecolo­gical envi­ron­ment. While Barsuglia’s endeavor does share a palpable and explicit idea­lism as such – he suggests that the drive and walk to the pool should provide “time to reflect on social values, dreams and reality” – Social Pool is not a nost­algic affair.

On the contrary, the work embo­dies the massive socio-economic changes that have taken place in the last forty years. It thus under­stands itself as the product of an economy in which privacy and imma­te­ria­lity has been fully commo­di­fied. For many a consumer, art is expected to operate accor­ding to the prin­ci­ples of the service economy rather than follo­wing huma­nist ideals of intellec­tual or moral stimulus and educa­tion.

More similar to a yoga lesson

The title of Barsuglia’s work alone attests to his acute aware­ness that Social Pool might operate in ways more similar to a yoga lesson or vaca­tion away from it all than as an enligh­tened dialog with an enig­matic object: esca­pism rather than critique, digres­sion rather than trans­gres­sion. In line with the demands of the larger consumer society, Social Pool was conceived of as an expe­ri­ence encom­pas­sing a poten­ti­ally trans­for­ma­tive journey, a promise of rela­xa­tion, the peace of remo­teness, all while staying tuned in.

Social Pool is a sculp­ture that’s a bath, an artwork both lite­rally immersive and forcibly rela­xing. Astu­tely intert­wi­ning semantic cons­tructs like contem­po­rary art, the pool (the symbol of care­free wealth, even more so in the desert), rela­xa­tion and nature, Social Pool is a complex replica of the contra­dic­tions and ideo­logy of contem­po­rary society, where remo­teness from others and quietude are luxu­ries for the ever-commu­ni­ca­ting city-dweller.

Elements of the sublime and the ridiculous

Barsu­glia directly trans­lates this desire for seclu­sion and indi­vi­dual enjoy­ment into the layout and concept of the project: GPS coor­di­nates, other­wise kept secret, toge­ther with a key that opens the pool cover are provided to the willing visitor by the MAK Center for Art and Archi­tec­ture in West Holly­wood. In a feat of design and engi­nee­ring, the pool cover also keeps the water from evapo­ra­ting and serves, when opened, as an addi­tional resting area. Bisected into two areas, one rectan­gular, one cubic, one filled with water, one dry (where visi­tors can change their clothes), the pool offers just enough space for one or two people to stand or sit on either of its sides (appro­pria­tely, a bench is built into each half). The walls of each pool segment are so high that the seated person cannot easily see whoever sits in the adja­cent space, despite the fact that they are just next door. In a deli­be­rate over-deter­mi­na­tion of the work’s suggested idio­syn­cra­sies, Barsu­glia stipu­lated that only one person or small party at a time can use the pool, and for no longer than 24 hours.

In its purpo­sefully slick absur­dity and inherent stance against nature – it even has an auto­matic, solar panel-operated filter and chlo­rine system – Social Pool combines elements of the sublime and the ridi­cu­lous. Its absur­dity becomes even more tangible with the rela­tive incon­ve­ni­ence of reaching it, similar to the pains one goes through to “get-away” – when no internet rese­arch is too time-consuming, no journey by plane, train, car, bus, or boat (or any combi­na­tion of the above) is too arduous, to reach the loca­tion where one can relax and hopefully redis­cover, at least for a week or two, one’s true self.

However, Barsu­glia does not propose escape from society as a solu­tion. He is genuine when phra­sing the time spent driving to see Social Pool as an oppor­tu­nity to reflect on our consump­tion and enter­tain­ment-driven life­style, and just as genuine when provi­ding GPS coor­di­nates to do so. The escape Barsu­glia pres­ents is tempo­rary, it is futile and self-involved, it is plea­sure-driven and it is not egali­ta­rian – it is the embo­di­ment of life in late capi­ta­lism and the treat yourself atti­tude of consumer society. Whether we follow Barsuglia’s advice and think about why we do what we do is as much up to us as the choice to ques­tion (and act upon) our libi­dinal invest­ment in a pres­ti­gious job or precious apart­ment. His is a well-meaning advice, not an order. Maybe the trip to Social Pool will be just a trip to the spa, or a notable encounter with an artwork, possibly even a life-alte­ring expe­ri­ence or, who knows, it could mark the modest begin­ning of a social revo­lu­tion.