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.