“Open Window”
Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer and Simon McGlinn
13 Sept → 3 Nov 2018

Close up any other rooms that you can, forcing the bird into one area of the home. Close off and cover any windows in the containment area except for one. This window should be opened as wide as possible. With some time, the bird will fly toward the open window and back out into the wild. If significant time passes and the bird still hasn’t gone out the window, you can try to steer the bird using a large sheet. Hold the sheet in both hands with your arms raised like a ghost. Herd the bird toward the window without touching it, just as a cattle dog steers sheep through a pasture.

Inside opens to outside. Outside comes in through the window. Inside contains outside.
[INTERNAL WALLS]
In 9 of 12 societies where homes have separate bedrooms for parents, people prefer to have sex indoors. In cultures without homes with separate rooms, sex is more often preferred outdoors.
[SILENT READING]
They could exist in interior space, protected from outsiders by its covers, became the one’s own possession, one’s intimate knowledge, whether in the busy scriptorium, the market-place or the home. Eyes were drawn through the pages, while his heart searched for its meaning; however, his voice and tongue were quiet.
[SINGLE BEDS]
Among the modern North American Utku’s, a desire for solitude can seem profoundly rude.
American maximum security prison - highest form of punishment: solitary confinement. Prisoners commonly restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed.
[INFORMATION CONFIDENTIALITY]
Keep it secret, keep it safe.
The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and people, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon one’s privacy, subjected people to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury.
Is it secret? Is it safe?
[VOLUNTARY TRACKING]
A pigeon came through my window. I knew it would, I opened it for them.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. That’s how we think of it. If we can get out of the way, our guests can create more memories.
Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion - people who are induced to believe this are more likely to behave immorally.

This project is supported by the City of Melbourne and Creative Victoria. The project is part of West Space’s annual commission series, which invests in a local artist to create a new body of work. Open Window is the fourth iteration of the series, following Jason Phu (2017), Lisa Radford (2016) and Lou Hubbard (2015).