THE SUN LAWN, 1982
- Documentation, mixed materials

Starting out as a composer, Eric Andersen has since the early 1960s been working with intermedia projects, i.e. projects that position themselves somewhere in between various traditional artistic disciplines. Much of his activity has been associated with Fluxus, of which he has been part since 1962, but in recent years he has also worked with other contacts. Of particular note in this context are his collaborations with architects, astrophysicists and engineers with whom he has worked on a range of giant-scale projects that take the universe as their backdrop.

The Sun Lawn is conceived as a circular section of a green lawn, lifted free of the earth and mounted on a mechanical arm which keeps the circular lawn at an angle perpendicular to the sun at all times, meaning that it will turn with the sun, facing upwards during the day and downwards towards the other side of the Earth at night. The fact that the lawn is always at a right angle towards the sun means that it is outside of the Earth’s rotation; by stepping on to the lawn you leave the familiar globe behind in favour of a new alternative located in space.

Watch 3D animation of The Sun Lawn here.

Due to his education as a composer, Eric Andersen was interested in intermediary projects from the very beginning. He investigated the open interaction between artwork and spectator through his Opus-works during the sixties. Since 1962, Eric Andersen has been a member of the Fluxus-movement, which was formed by international artists who in different ways worked intermediary and interactively, using concepts like anti-art. Thus connected to the Fluxus-movement, Eric Andersen, along with Arthur Köpcke, came to the first Fluxus-concert in the Church of Nicolai in Copenhagen in 1962. 

Eric Andersen’s field of work encompasses experimental works of art that combine audio, music, speech, film and poetry – with an important focus on audience participation and interaction between the work and the spectator. Characteristically, his work entails the use of philosophical ideas, humor and paradoxes.