The kind of influence you want is a much deeper influence. It's like empowerment. Things are like this, but what if they were like that? What happens if you turn everything inside out? It's something that not just artists do. I think scientists do that, too. There's a theory: What if we pour water on it? That's also what a child does. If a child came in now, the child would ignore us, go under the table, and make a house.
Vito AcconciSometimes when you come from outside a discipline you pay attention to things that insiders take for granted. I admit that sometimes I feel hesitant in the midst of other architects. I can't help thinking that they know more than I do, but I also feel that maybe I can go in directions they learned you're not supposed to go in.
Vito AcconciWhat I never wanted in art - and why I probably didn't belong in art - was that I never wanted viewers. I think the basic condition of art is the viewer: The viewer is here, the art is there. So the viewer is in a position of desire and frustration. There were those Do Not Touch signs in a museum that are saying that the art is more expensive than the people. But I wanted users and a habitat. I don't know if I would have used those words then, but I wanted inhabitants, participants. I wanted an interaction.
Vito AcconciThe great thing about the Guggenheim is that you can see art in the fastest way if you want to. Which isn't bad. It's almost like Frank Lloyd Wright didn't know something called the Internet was going to exist, so he made it so you can go down as fast as possible.
Vito AcconciEven though I always claimed that I didn't want to write about something - once I wasn't writing fiction, anyway; I think for me the change from fiction to poetry was that in fiction I was writing about something, in poetry I was writing something.
Vito Acconci