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125 Artists Explore the New Feelings of the Future

Los-Angeles-based Institute for New Feeling put together 125 artists to share art-generated new feelings.
Kim Laughton, Siliconscious

Modern routines suck, and we can all agree on that. Stucked in stressful jobs, living alongside boring people in loud cities, we often require escapes, fleeting as they are. At least there's the Los Angeles-based Institute for New Feeling, which aims to help Angelenos out. Exploring new way of feeling, the experimental research clinic uses various methods—including treatments, retreats, research studies, and wellness products—to provide their customers with one-of-a-kind, art-focused therapies.

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Recently, the Institute published FELT BOOK, an online publication and exhibition that features the works of over 125 artists who subtly highlight how art can affect day-to-day well-being, maybe influence us to reach nirvana, or at least share some insights towards doing so. “We’re a three-person collective but interested in broader forms of collaboration—this project came from an impulse to ask other artists to approach our core interest in 'new feeling,' to see what they might come up with,” co-founder Nina Sarnelle explains The Creators Project. “The instructional form of the FELT BOOK is inspired by Fluxus as well as the many styles of instructions we encounter today, like YouTube tutorials, eHow articles, DIY publications, technical diagrams, home remedies.”

Beyond the creative freedom of the simple and open-ended prompt, the works submitted were asked to not only propose activities or processes for the viewer, but to also innovate and generating this so-called 'new feeling.' “We were interested in artists who approach new feeling through new technology, new ways of communicating, new political or environmental realities, etc.; artists who integrate conflict and contradictory ways of feeling; artists whose work looks nothing like ours, or like each other,” she tells us. “We’re also thinking about this old fashioned idea of art as 'therapy'—What happens if we convert any artwork into a therapeutic exercise?“

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Rollin Leonard, YES/NO

The last week, the institute celebrated the book's digital launch by unveiling a massive group show that features a wide range of works. With videos, texts, sculptures, and limited edition garments on one side, and interactive and web-based works on the other, it attacks the theme from many angles. Each works offers up its own aesthetics and mediums, but still ends up with sharp visual instructions on where medicine, spirituality, and art meet.

Check out a selection from FELT BOOK below:

Theo Triantafyllidis, FOMO fbX

Eva Papamargariti, Three Domestic Events Against Boredom

Casey Kauffmann, Reflexive Validation Therapy

Annabelle Arlie, Talk to me about your experience

Adam Ferriss, Dead Pixel Burial Kit

The FELT BOOK exhibition is on view at Werkartz multidisciplinary arts complex, in Los Angeles’ art district, until May 24. Click here to learn more about the Institute for New Feeling.

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