Arthur Clay is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and developer of new forms of public art. His work moves between art, technology, sound, performance and social interaction. Since his early experiments with interactive media and wearable computing, he has explored how digital technologies can create shared experiences in public space rather than simply transmit information.
Clay’s work is based on a central artistic question: How can people create meaning together in public space? Instead of producing closed art objects, he develops situations, tools and environments in which audiences become active participants. A city can become a score, a room can become an instrument, and a museum can become a shared behaviour.
As founder and artistic director of the Digital Art Weeks at ETH Zurich, Clay brought together artists, scientists, engineers and cultural institutions over many years. The platform supported experimental media art and created international exchange between artistic practice, technological innovation and research.
His projects include performative sound works, augmented reality environments, participatory public artworks and interactive installations. Works such as GoingPublik, Music for Gongs & Satellites, SoundScapers, HoerRoom and the Open Space Museum understand city, landscape and architecture as places of performative experience. Their impact lies not only in what is shown, but in what visitors are invited to do, hear, touch, move through and co-create.
Today, Clay’s work focuses on the development of the Performative Surround. He uses this term to describe artistic systems that connect sound, movement, place and social interaction into shared fields of experience. The Open Space Museum forms a key platform for this approach: it proposes that the museum is no longer only a building, but a social behaviour in public space.
Arthur Clay’s works have been presented internationally in museums, festivals, universities and research contexts. His projects have been supported by cultural agencies, foundations, academic institutions and industry partners, including Presence Switzerland, Pro Helvetia, Swissnex, Migros Kulturprozent, the Mondriaan Foundation, the Japan Foundation, Arts Council England, Canada Council for the Arts, ETH Zurich, EPFL and others.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is concerned with the conditions under which meaning, perception and social relation are produced in public space.
I develop artistic systems that combine sound, movement, technology and social interaction. These systems are not conceived as autonomous objects, but as situated frameworks in which the presence and actions of participants become part of the work itself. I describe this approach as the Performative Surround. The term refers to a field of relations between performers, visitors, objects, media and place. Within this field, the artwork is not limited to an installation, a score or a technical apparatus. It emerges through the interaction between spatial conditions, media structures and human participation.
In my projects, the public is not positioned as a passive audience. Visitors enter into the work as listeners, agents, navigators and co-producers of experience. Through sound, augmented reality, mobile media, modular structures and participatory formats, everyday environments are reconfigured as temporary sites of performance, perception and collective interpretation. Technology is used not as an end in itself, but as a means of structuring attention, movement and encounter. My work investigates how art can move beyond the discrete object and operate as a shared spatial and social process.
SELECTED CONTEXTS & SUPPORT
Arthur Clay has worked with and presented projects in collaboration with cultural, academic and research institutions in Europe, Asia and North America, including ETH Zurich, EPFL, Zurich University of the Arts, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, NTU and NUS Singapore, Politecnico di Milano, Sogang University, Seoul National University and others.
His work has been supported by Presence Switzerland, Pro Helvetia, Swissnex China, Swissnex Singapore, Migros Kulturprozent, the Mondriaan Foundation, the Japan Foundation, Arts Council England, Canada Council for the Arts and various public, private and research partners.