Travelways

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More than an art encounter

AN attendant is quietly letting a few visitors to MONA know that he's about to feed Cloaca. This is no ordinary situation. Take the place, David Walsh's $150 million Museum of Old and New Art, burrowed into a cliff beside the Derwent River. Take the admission fee: nothing. Take this particular installation: Cloaca Professional, created by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. It poos. Cloaca takes food and turns it into faeces via a series of transparent intestines suspended from the ceiling. The gallery stinks and, like most of the art that forms the Monanism exhibition, challenges the visitor. A personal iPod with GPS tells each visitor what they are looking at and gives the option of voting: there's no middle ground, of course, you vote for either love or hate. And when you vote, for example, that you  "love'' Gregory Barsamian's giant head, Artifact, you might learn that "656,887 humans felt the love''. The iPods are important because there are no signs next to the artwork. They unobtrusively collate opinions from visitors and offer background on artworks under the icon, "artwank''. For a more off-the-wall take on the artwork and perhaps life in general, you can hit the "Gonzo'' icon. When asking the iPod about Anselm Kiefer's Sternenfall I hit "love'' on the iPod and find out that "6 per cent of our beautiful visitors loved this artwork too'' and hit Gonzo to read notes by Mr Walsh that appear to postulate that astrology is hogwash. I pass on the opportunity to see the poo machine being fed because I suspect I'm at the wrong end of the museum, perhaps on the wrong level and perhaps already spoilt for close encounters with turds  by virtue of labrador ownership. Other installations call out for reaction and interaction: bit.fall by Julius Popp is an intermittent waterfall that briefly spells a word every second or so. The words are randomly plucked from the internet and catching their fleeting formation is a  great test for your photographic timing. There's too much at MONA to be captured by a single impression. That night, talking to friends about the experience, I mention feeling uncomfortable standing in front of the  150 porcelain vaginas of C---- and Other Conversations by Greg Taylor and friends. It can be  awkward, at MONA, to find the appropriate mode or length of time for observation: mid-visit an armchair looks inviting: is it there for patrons or part of the installation? It's  the latter.  My Beautiful Chair, by Greg Taylor, includes Philip Nitschke's voluntary euthanasia device. Death and sex are recurrent themes at MONA. So's life. Take Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room. Grip two handles until your pulse is represented by a flashing bulb. The pulse then moves from bulb to bulb until entering a room where dozens of globes represent the day's visitors. It's the beating heart of MONA. IF YOU GO MONA's first exhibition, Monanism, evolves. For example, the dripping carcasses of Jannis Kounellis's untitled work were replaced by ropes. The museum opens from 10am-6pm. Closed Tuesdays. See mona.net.au