project 26/

EVERYTHING IMPORTANT IS ALWAYS ON THE RIGHT

N. Zelenin, Chauffeur, Magnitogorsk

Our psyche, as is well known not only to psychiatrists who study such problems, but also to any person by his own experience, suf- fers infinitely from the impossibility of discerning what is important in one's own life and not only in essential questions of being, but also in "simple" affairs of common everyday life.

Either some sort of worries and problems suddenly increase in their significance, they acquire an importance not inherent in them, or just the opposite, for the same incomprehensible reason, they lose it, they seem completely insignificant. And, it bears repeating, this is not under the influence of some circumstances, but simply by virtue of the quality of the psyche itself.

Our project envisages a mitigation of this situation, and in its extreme form, the elimination of it altogether, using special qualities of that very same psyche.

You have to rearrange the table where you work, move it closer to the table and place it up against it with its left side, in such a way so that when you are sitting at it, your left shoulder is turned toward the wall. Then, on the same wall above this table, hang a large and preferably very good, valuable framed painting slightly angled on the wall (if you don't have one in your house, it is worth acquiring one, or if worse comes to worse, substitute for it a large and high quality reproduction of a famous artist). The value of the painting has a direct affect on the quality of the result which you would like to achieve. One other circumstance cannot be forgotten either; the space in front of your table should remain fairly unencumbered.

After fulfilling all the above conditions, sit down at the table and begin your usual activities. You will immediately see a sharp change in your inner state of well-being: the space of the room in front of you will become different, it will be more seri- ous, saturated, in it, more profound, substantive ideas will come to you from it, the meaning of your endeavors will seem to be more valuable and necessary. The reason rests in the arrangement of the painting in relation to the spatial orientation of your attention. The more valuable the object located on your left side, the more valuable and significant will turn out to be the right and front on you. Wherein rests the reason for this effect - it has not been established by anyone to date, but many in the XIX century and even before that knew this instinctively, which is attested to by the interior of houses of these periods, as captured in many picturesque canvases.

EVERYTHING IMPORTANT IS ALWAYS ON THE RIGHT

1. Make a painting 200 x 240 cm in size and arrange it in a smooth, gold-leaf frame. The width of the frame is 7 cm.

2. Hang the painting on the wall at a slight angle at a height of 100 cm from the floor.

3. Place a table next to the hanging painting (the kind of table that stands near every exhibit in every installation).

The table of 70 x 90 cm, it is made of discolored old wood; the distance from the wall is 105 cm.

4. Place the table with only with its short side (70 cm) toward the wall and the painting.

5. Place the description of the project "Everything Important is Always on the Right" on the table. Place one chair at the table.

6. It is very important not to have any wall close to the front of the table, but insofar as is possible, the open space of the hall so that the eye doesn't "fall" anywhere.