Gustave Le Bon Table
The Gustave Le Bon table is an exhibition table; it gives an immediate importance to whatever is placed upon its upper surface. Deprived of vertical elements at its edges, the Gustave Le Bon table allows you to walk around it, seduced by the elements positioned on it, free from the trouble of shoes bumping against the legs of the furniture it. The legs of the Gustave Le Bon table are constructed as a set of metallic frames to remind that the showcasing elements can also remain absolutely empty and serve for different reasons as for example here to stabilize the furniture with no real legs. The legs of the Gustave Le Bon table are proposed as the thinnest possible (here 20x20 mm of metal square tubing) since the horizontal surface of the table has to finally give the impression of flying, or at the very least, instability. To achieve this effect, a dense sequence of invisible stabilizing screws are inserted through the horizontal length of the table, attaching the legs to the surface: structurally speaking, the surface stabilizes the legs and not vice versa.
To magnify the hypnotic power of the table, some additional pieces can be attached to its horizontal surface in order to structure the surplus of amazement evoked by the view of the Gustave Le Bon table, and to distinguish some elements from others. The added elements (that can incorporate in the experience of the table all possible things: papers, books and video pieces) complicate the structure of the surface but never abolish the gesture of offering a simple horizontal plane to exhibit distinguished objects, video works and sounds. All additions to the table act as new empty structures that insist anew on the power of the horizontal surface as an empty field. The result is shaped as a simple decision to fill an empty ensemble with material to be shown. The table cannot support a large number of objects so it is delivered together with requirements that stipulate a minimum distance between objects of no less than 65 cm, and distances from its edge no less than 35 cm.
The Gustave Le Bon table is equipped with a repertoire of alternative empty options, able to enrich the situation of observing elements that can fit. The purpose of the Gustave Le Bon table is to glorify whatever is put on its surface; the additional elements of the table give more opportunities on this regard; some enclosed vitrines further idealize the shown material as untouchable; the option of a voice or sound to be added in the form of an audio file; the setting of thin horizontal monitors or vertical projections: all augment the possibilities of idealizing different material that can be included. Even if filled by random material, the Gustave Le Bon table is meant to manipulate the viewer's attention radically. Even if the viewer is allowed to manipulate the content of the showing platform the purpose of the Gustave Le Bon table is to hypnotize and absorb the viewer’s attention.
Gustave Le Bon’s work is known for being influential to such disparate figures as Theodore Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, Sigmund Freud, José Ortega y Gasset, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Le Bon supported hierarchical views including views on races and sexes. It is exactly because of this that his name is given to the table; the act of showing remains always suspect to an imposition of a clear hierarchy glorifying the selected material whilst banishing what is not shown to the dark; the function of it is to set hierarchical values that promote privileges to the the objects put on its surface. This irrefutable power of the table to promote values can of course be used to resettle forgotten discourses, objects, or documents. This does not change the institutional character of the Gustave Le Bon table , and its ability to glorify a selection. The exchangeability of different things to be exhibited proves the powerful ability of the empty structure to announce whatever is important.
The mechanism of attributing importance can only function if importance is seen as a construction; and if what is shown is less important than the mechanism which creates importance itself. Kingdom is more powerful than one king, and in this sense the structure of this table serves as a tool for hierarchy-making; but it also serves to ridicule hierarchy as a construction adjusted to anything shown on it; all can be replaced in this structure by anything else. The structure of proposing a hierarchy and the rhetoric of the empty Le Bon piece are always more important than any proposed hierarchy. In this sense the table structures attention and distorts interestingly any presented piece.
The function of the Gustave Le Bon table is to guide definitively to attention and give immediate importance to what one decides to include on it. This can also be seen as the problem this object creates. The Gustave Le Bon table simultaneously provides a solution for organizing a show, but also acts as a critique of the act of showing; showing always needs an additional power of a permanently empty glorifying frame to present elements conceived "as such".
The Gustave Le Bon table proposed as a set of 12 empty pieces takes the form of an installation showing already the power that the furniture has to directly operate in the mind of a viewer.
