(1-hour walk, everyday installations)
For this impulse, I simply walked. One hour. Just my phone, my eyes and an open mind.
If CoSA showed me how exaggerated framing works, and the Schlossberg Museum showed me how subtle framing still guides behaviour, then this walk through Graz showed me to be present.
The Walk (Duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes)
I started on Mariahilferstraße, wandered across the Murinsel, continued toward Lendplatz, went into side streets, crossed Annenstraße and slowly moved toward Grieskai.
It’s strange: when you intentionally look for accidental meaning, the world starts to reveal tiny compositions everywhere. Some poetic, some funny, some tragic, some boring, some confusing.
Here are a few moments I captured:
1) The Fallen Cone
Near Lendplatz a single orange traffic cone lay sideways, slightly dented. It looked almost theatrical.
If this were in a museum, it would be part of an installation about urban chaos.
Outside, it’s just a cone.
But what changed?
Only the frame.
This made me think: maybe objects communicate consistently, it’s just our interpretive mode that switches.
2) The Empty Coffee Cup on a Windowsill
Not a trash bin. Not a table. A windowsill.
Someone had placed it there deliberately or absentmindedly.
And suddenly it became a story.
- Was someone waiting for a friend?
- Did they forget it?
- Did they mark the spot like some urban ritual?
The funniest part: if I placed a cup there myself, it would be “an intervention.”
But because someone else did it accidentally, it becomes “everyday installation.”
The line between art and non-art grows thinner the more I walk.
3) The Three Cigarette Butts Forming a Triangle
This one wasn’t poetic but a bit bizarre.
Three cigarette butts arranged almost perfectly into a triangle like some secret smoker geometry.
I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t rearrange them. But the order was uncanny.
Is it art?
Is it coincidence?
Does it matter?
Maybe communication happens the moment the viewer cares enough to interpret.
What This Walk Taught Me About My Thesis
My question “What does it take for art to communicate without a frame?” felt different after this walk.
More layered.
More complicated.
But in a good way.
Here’s what I realized:
1. The frame isn’t always physical — sometimes it’s mental.
If I walk with the mindset of “I’m looking for art,” the world becomes an exhibition.
If I walk without that mindset, everything becomes background noise.
Which means:
Maybe art communicates without a frame only when the viewer is aware enough to see it.
2. Everyday installations rely on the viewer, not the maker.
In museums, meaning is served to you.
On the street, meaning must be harvested.
That difference is huge.
Street installations don’t explain themselves.
They don’t try.
They don’t guide you.
They don’t ask to be understood.
Meaning only appears when someone stops, looks, interprets.
3. Art without a frame might require more effort
A frame protects.
A frame contextualizes.
A frame tells you:
“Look here, this matters.”
Without that, all you have is noise unless you tune yourself to see the signal.
Walking through Graz felt like tuning myself.
And maybe that’s the heart of my MA:
To understand not only how art communicates without a frame, but how people learn to see without being told to.
Why This Walk was important
This walk felt like practicing perception.
And perception might be the key to answering my thesis question.
If I want to understand how to communicate without a frame, I need to understand the conditions that make a viewer receptive.
This walk was the first step in that direction.
Links
https://www.graz.at
https://www.murinsel.at
https://www.graztourismus.at
AI Disclaimer
This blog post was written with the assistance of AI.
