The Collective Foundation is currently on exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As a gallery guide, I had the opportunity to lead a group of teenagers and their mentors on a tour of the installation one Saturday in May.

At the beginning of the tour I asked the group, "What is a collective?"
A few replied, “A collective is something you collect.”
I then asked, “And what are you doing when you collect something?”
One of the boys replied, “You’re gathering a bunch of things.”
I then asked the group, what does the color red mean or express to you?
They responded, “Anger.” “Love.” “Communism.”

In How Do We See Red? Count the Ways, (New York Times, Tuesday, February 6, 2007) Natalie Angier writes, “exquisite ambassador for love…the color of the blood that flushes the face and swells the pelvis…In red we see shades of life, death, fury, shame, courage, anguish, pride…” Angier continues, red is also “the color of revolution, of throwing the established order.”

Russian Communist propaganda was created in red, black, and white. Constructivist artists such as Rodchenko and Lissensky worked with this color palette to create visual stimulation and products for the state. In China, Cuba, and Mexico artists did the same, creating socialist propaganda in red to imply intensity, power, and revolution.

In How Do we See Red?..., Angier quotes Dr. Nicholas Humphrey, Philosopher at the London school of Economics and author of, Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness, “If you want to make a point, make it in red.” Humphrey claims, “red is without exception the first color word to enter the vocabulary….some languages it’s the only color word apart from black and white.”

A study conducted on the use of red in individual fighting sports, found that the athletes who wore red, won “significantly more often than would be expected by chance alone.” However, they are still struggling with the question: Do the athletes who wear the color get a “subconscious boost” from the attire or do their opponents feel threatened by the color red and thus back down?

Throughout the Collective Foundation installation, the color red is cleverly displayed, presenting slight flux in color and psyche. The Collective’s use of this color was brought up in discussion at gallery meeting, and a call was made to a member of CF to ask about the foundation’s intensions. We were told that the color, in relation to the collective, signified an association with corporate logos/icons i.e. Coca-Cola, in addition to the color’s political association with socialism. The variation of red from scarlet to burgundy represented the “unification and differences” experienced within a collective while further referencing the “pixilated” effects of color in which postmodernism has become affiliated with via digital/analog processing.

View of Collective Foundation entry.

When one enters the gallery they are met with a wallpapered wall of a red and white design. In front of the wall is a red, wood screen, cut with the same pattern as the wallpaper. Using a networking symbol influenced by a children’s game, the wallpaper pattern/design signifies a visual map of a collective/networking system. The design is a culmination of individual pictograms in which each pictogram represents a “set” which is “open” to linking to other sets/pictograms. Each of the pictograms is capable of joining with multiple sets, which are capable of linking to multiple sets, which are capable of linking to multiple sets, and so on. This accumulation of a red and white design exhibits how collectives/networking systems work and why they are an infinite process.

“The screens are cut with a patterned latticework that offers views through their wooden membranes. The pattern is a stylized reference to the networking system of a childhood toy and is echoed in reverse, on the light fixture that hangs above the conference table, as well as the wallpaper covering the gallery’s outer walls.” (Statement: Furnishing the Collective Foundation, Rene de Guzman.) Each pictogram represents a subject and the subject’s relations. Once placed in a mass formation (i.e. total design) the icon presents linking connections to other subjects and sources.

View of Collective Foundation "conference table."

The main room is a dimly lit red space. The red folding screens are arranged in the center of the room, creating an inner rectangle of a transparent semi-enclosed area. “Transparency, which is both a mode of communication and a code of working that the CF abides by, is literally manifest in the custom built screens.” (Statement: Furnishing the Collective Foundation, Berin Golonu.) Comparable to an office cubicle and boardroom meeting area, there is an arrangement of adjoining tables set in the middle of the space. Chairs surround the table, and computers sit on the surface of the table arrangement. Visitors may sit down and view the Collective Foundation website to research information about the foundation and link to the foundation’s various recourses.

Circling the red transparent rectangle are two red walls and two white walls. The first white wall contains small individually framed images of furniture. The Collective Furniture Project was conceived and created by members of the collective who wanted a “material presence” for the Collective Foundation while exhibited at YBCA. Various pieces of furniture were donated to the project (on loan). Each piece of furniture was permanently modified so that the object linked aesthetically to the other pieces of furniture. At the end of the exhibition, the furniture will be returned to its rightful owner. A wall text located next to the grid of framed photos explains the project’s concept to the viewer.

Across the space, on the other white wall, hang photographs, which present examples of various forms of body collectives. Each photo is nicely framed and hung wide enough apart. They ask for the gallery visitor to come up-close-and-personal or walk by and ignore the image. Between transparent screens and a white wall, the viewer’s spatial experience—viewing these photos—is similar to that of a passing hallway gallery.

View of Collective Foundation "reading room."

Exiting the red boardroom, the gallery visitor may take a breath of air and relax in a more comfortable and lighter area. Unlike the dimly lit, dark, red enclosure, the “reading room” is airy and sweet and nearly lovable. The room is more white than red, thus lacking the bombardment of red’s aggressive power. It is wallpapered (on one wall) with the “collective” design, and furniture is arranged to invite the participant to sit down, read, and/or converse with another. There is even a buffet offering tea for the visitor’s pleasure.