Carsten Höller

Using his training as a scientist in his work as an artist, Carsten Höller's primary concerns relate to the nature of human perception and self-exploration. He has undertaken many projects that invite viewer participation and interaction while questioning human behavior, perception, and logic. His “laboratory of doubt,” embodied in objects ranging from carousels and slippery slides to upside-down goggles, often contains playful, hallucinatory or darkly humorous overtones in order to provoke experience and reflection. With his photographic prints of Ferris Wheels, merry-go-rounds, and roller coasters where the colors have been 'displaced' so as to create images that refuse to register; or his "flicker films" shot from multiple perspectives and projected sequentially to create a sense of movement; or a crop of magic mushrooms hanging upside-down from the ceiling, Höller aims to disorient and by doing so, stimulate precognitive moments of pure sensation.