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The experimental proposition of CC4 Nocagions, the Cosmococa work selected for "Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space" is very open - a "suprasensorial" experience. (In fact, the use of the phrase "in progress" suggests the series’ open-endedness and ability to influence other texts or projects.) The environment comprises an enclosed room featuring a functional swimming pool surrounded by a wood deck strewn with lounging mats, a string of tiny bulbs lining the pool’s edge, a bright green light illuminating the water itself, piped-in music, and a slideshow of images featuring John Cage’s book Notations (1969) projected on two opposite walls. These images, taken by Oiticica himself, are not bound together by an overarching narrative, though they succeed one another like the frames of a film. The lights, the deck, the mats, and the pool are arranged as if props on a film set. Visitors entering the space are immediately surrounded by images of Cage’s book, a collection of music manuscripts accompanied by text organized through chance operations, projected onto the walls at regular intervals. They hear Cage’s Credo in Us (1942) filtering through the speakers, and they see colored lights both outside and inside the pool. The experience is complete when visitors change into bathing suits and view the environment from the vantage point of the water. They may also lounge on the deck and socialize, spending as much time in the work as they desire. By completing the work in this way, they, too, become elements of the overall installation.
(Alma Ruiz, from the curatorial text)
Reconstruction of the swimming pool with lights and projections, created with Neville D’Almeida in 1973.
