Essentials of Psychological Testing
Adhesive wrap on articulated bus
Dimensions variable
2019
Essentials of Psychological Testing is a collage that wraps six public buses travelling on major routes in Vancouver, produced as part of a year-long public art partnership between the Contemporary Art Gallery and Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority TransLink. The nature of this project—public transit vehicles enveloped by visual imagery and traversing the space of the city—offers a lyrical opportunity to explore connections between images, meaning and movement.
Adapted from an earlier series titled The Elements of Discontent (2015), the digital collage is made up of elements taken from a psychology textbook borrowed from the Vancouver Public Library, from which all the drawings, charts, diagrams and graphs were scanned and all textual information erased. The elimination of the contextual significance of the images allows for a consideration of the field of psychology as it is visually represented through methods of quantification and abstraction. Devoid of decipherable messages, the collaged imagery resembles cryptic puzzles and points to the impossibility of encapsulating subjective experience.
Please click here to read more about this public art initiative.
All images courtesy of TransLink BC.
