RETURNING TO B.F. SKINNER
Marc Aidinoff, Emma Benintende, Graham Lazar, Ivy Pan, Kyle Parry, and Tiffany Wey
Inspired by Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner's demonstration of conditioning a pigeon to turn, the 'Skinner Group' built the multimedia exhibition Returning to B.F. Skinner. Proposing Skinner employed pigeons not only as experimental subjects but also as tools of scientific rhetoric, the exhibition provided a uniquely contemporary platform for visitors to return to - and even inhabit - his highly influential work. Stepping inside three specially-designed "Skinner boxes," visitors performed environmentally-conditioned behaviors that placed them in a range of Skinnerian roles, from scientist to pigeon to patient. Meanwhile they extrapolated as they would.