appliances for the direct experience

A few years now I am exploring the possibilities to reduce the distance between audience and artwork. I am now at a point in my research that I am convinced that this distance can be eliminated and that the audience becomes the core of the work.
This means that the individual can experience the meaning of the work first hand beyond the protective shell created by the traditional language in art.

I use the language of art to tempt people to come closer, to examine and I use the curiosity that is in all of us to go further into the search of the true meaning of the work.
Within the elimination of the distance the audiance/participants are able to experience a basic feeling, a physical disturbance or a mental consciousness.
Most times these are moments of self-awareness, of pushing against our own boundaries, of getting in touch with lost elements.  
Within this way of thinking the artist takes on a different role. He becomes a conductor of experiences, a servant of humanity, an activist against shallowness,… I see myself as an artist/teacher whose main job it is to create awareness.

The results of this research are shape into appliances for the direct experience, one-person spaces, installations called Test Object Yard products.

The meaning of TEST OBJECT YARD is most directly: a courtyard, imaginary or real, where test objects are being created, examined, and approved or not.

The yard can be the studio, a defined space, or a landscape, but also refers to the thoughts and movements inside the artist's mind.

The test objects often originate from different kinds of material that are discoverd through a continuous search inside the immediate surrounding and from the desire to make use of the waste of a consumer society.

Within the test object yard, the material is examined thoroughly with regard to shape, plastic possibilities, meaning, and so on.

The abbreviation of Test Object Yard, the word TOY then refers to the way of working within the vision of a Test Object Yard examination.

The ultimate goal is to create an entirety where ingredients as sculpture, architecture, sound, light,… are merged which can be enjoyed, experienced, investigated, by the audience/participants.
This creation will have the soul purpose to create a consciousness of one self as an individual.
Summarized: Different elements coming together and creating one entirety in which one can move around and suck the creative juice.

Because the direct interaction between artwork and audience/participants has become essential within my work.
I am searching for spaces and associated interaction to continue this research.
I am searching for the possibility to converse with different people beyond the boundaries of my own work- and living space.
But most importantly I want to reach as many people as possible because I need them to finish the work, to give the work a meaning of existence.
Without the audience/participants the work is useless, just like a toy that nobody plays with. 

TEST

• a measure of quality or suitability of cases, a check or touchstone
• an exam, research; an accurate examination
• an experiment, sample, or specimen

OBJECT

• a case or person considered or treated as such
• a subject, theme, or topic
• a three-dimensional work of art

YARD

• a garden, courtyard
• a place enclosed between the walls of an accompanying building
• an inner courtyard