When most people think of art, they might think first of the “Mona Lisa” or Pablo Picasso. Most would not imagine someone living in an art studio for two days, lifting weights and reading Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to a parrot.
But Joe Meiser did.
Meiser, a University art instructor, uses his art to research the connection between art, life and the human condition.
“I’m really interested in art’s ability to invent other realities,” he said.
As far as his two days of pumping iron and reciting philosophy to a bird, Meiser wanted to challenge his body to bring on different states of mind.
“I was trying to exhaust my body so my mind would transcend reality in a sense,” he said.
The studio was constructed to resemble a cave. He read to the parrot as a metaphor for limited understanding, and also as an experiment in passing on Plato’s work to another conscience being. He meant to live in the studio for three full days, but the stay was cut short when it started to feel more contrived and lacked the meaning he was hoping for.
“I was struggling with the feeling; I had failed,” he said, but later realized it was appropriate. “Plato’s ‘Allegory’ was really about leaving the cave.”
Meiser grew up in Cincinnati, and was interested in art as a child. He loved helping his dad build furniture in his wood shop.
Initially, Meiser wanted to become a painter before becoming more interested in three-dimensional art. He earned a bachelor’s degree in scupting at Northern Kentucky University. He got his master’s at Ohio University and went straight from there to BGSU to teach.
Meiser thought he probably became interested in sculpting because of his need to substantiate ideas.
“There’s just something really satisfying about seeing something being formed in space that wasn’t there before,” he said.
The last couple of years have really fueld his desire to learn more about the human condition.
“The human tendency to mythologize is both the subject and strategy of my work,” he wrote in his artist statement.
The exhibition wasn’t the first foray Meiser had in attempting to transcend the mind. He also once spent 10 hours in a sensory deprivation tank he built.
Once he performed an experiment in how laughter can affect the state of mind.
“The intention of that project was to see if laughter could bring on a transcendent state of mind,” Meiser said.
Shaurya Kumar, an assistant professor in the school of arts, participated in Meiser’s experiment.
During the project, a group of people made themselves laugh for 90 minutes, with the idea of getting the sense of how they felt after a while, Kumar said.
“[Meiser] wants to make his work very experiential,” he said. “It’s a great way of engaging people.”
The sort of transcending experience Meiser strives for has a wide base in history, Kumar said.
In the 1960s, Meiser said artists crossed boundaries between art and life. He wants to continue that tradition within his own creations.
“I want to try to live out some of my ideas and have it transform my life to some extent,” he said.
