Interactive installations are one of my favorite forms of art. I love it when the artist shares an extended experience with the audience bringing them into, and making them a part of the art.

My boyfriend Orien and I visited Carsten Höller’s exhibition “Leben” at TBA21, a gallery uniquely positioned inside the Augarten in Vienna. I loved his sensory deprivation tank or “floatation bath.” It was constructed with polypropylene, and is equipped with a spiral staircase, shower and float chamber. The chamber is filled with highly salinated water which allows you to float buoyantly without effort similarly to a sensory deprivation tank (which is usually also dark and sound proof preventing all sense experience. 

Two people are allowed into the chamber at a time. We wanted to try it and so after stripping off our clothes and donning clean white robes, the attendant let us up the waxy spiral staircase with a spray of disinfectant on our feet. We dipped into the brassy colored water which was set at 35 degrees Celsius, the same temperature as our skin. 

Laying in the tank, we floated to opposite sides of each other, not touching anything but the water, which was close to imperceptible. I felt weightless, almost like I was floating in space. The muted yellow light on the inside of the tank warmed my eyelids and lit the inside of them with a rosy orange hue. Problems and cares fell away and were replaced with a sense of wellbeing and a deep feeling of peace. I felt the kind of peace that I remember feeling as a kid, with little sense of time or cares. The only exception was when enough water condensation accumulated on the ceiling and unintentional drops of saline water would fall randomly on some part of my body snapping me out of the state of bliss for a moment, before I could relax back into it. An hour crept by me silently without much notice and eventually a knock on the door rattled me from my blissful state. We slowly got up as if from a long sleep, feeling still very relaxed. I highly recommend this experience. Art that has the potential to bring you peace… pretty sweet.

You can see the installation until November 23rd.