Year: 2025
Medium: A velvet rope (dangling), a sensor-activated alarm (a little too sensitive), 37 ambiguous objects (all deliberately fragile), one security guard (overly involved).
Dimensions: One room, as large as possible.
Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must) is a rigorous examination of boundaries, authority, and the fine line between passive observation and potential catastrophe. The installation consists of 37 objects placed throughout the gallery space, their arrangements combining order and an accident waiting to happen. Each object teeters just slightly, as if placed in mild defiance of gravity.
A single velvet rope hangs in the middle of the room, unattached to anything, useless yet present.
An omnipresent sign warns: PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ARTWORK.
Hidden motion sensors trigger a piercing alarm if a visitor steps too close to the art, with the definition of too close fluctuating wildly. Some people experience the siren from metres away. Others only realize they’ve transgressed when a security guard appears, shaking their head in quiet disappointment.
Adding to the confusion, select objects are labeled: PLEASE INTERACT. But these labels are written in faint, barely legible text and are placed facing the wall.
Visitors must decide: To interact, or not? To test the system, or submit to its unseen logic? The security guard watches. The alarm waits. The velvet rope sways not at all.
We accept authority without question until it contradicts itself. Then we are lost. Davos
This work centres around institutional critique, performative obedience, and the aesthetics of control. With Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must), Davos weaponises the fundamental rules of gallery etiquette, turning the act of looking into an act of risk.
The installation’s tension lies in its inconsistencies. The velvet rope which is normally a symbol of separation, offers no clear division. The alarm enforces an invisible yet arbitrary boundary. The security guard, rather than preventing infractions, appears only after they occur, her silent reproach more unsettling than any verbal warning.
And then there are the 37 objects themselves. Are they art? Are they props? Are they traps? No one knows for sure. The only certainty is that, at some point, probably very soon, someone will set off the alarm.
Visitor Guidelines:
• Do not touch the artwork. (Unless you must.)
• The security guard cannot answer your questions. She is part of the piece.
• If you hear the alarm, assume it was your fault.
• If you do not hear the alarm, assume you have missed the point.
Price: £785,000 (includes objects, alarm system, and an ongoing agreement with the security guard).
Limited Edition Artifact: A signed PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign (edition of 14), available for £120,000 each.
With Please Do Not Interact With The Art (Except When You Must), Davos invites us into a paradox: a space where we are simultaneously free and restricted, where we follow the rules until we realise, too late, that we’ve already broken them.