Born in the 1990s, the Relational Aesthetics movement saw a group of artists endeavoring to facilitate interaction and communication between artist and viewer through participatory installations and events. Relational artists rejected making conventional art objects, instead opting to engage audiences by creating situations that call for interpersonal interaction.
In 1997, Berlin-based artist Hans Hemmert, most famous for his work with balloons, hosted a party where guests wore shoe-extenders to make them all the same height of two meters. Bringing all the partygoers to a common eye level, the shoes, all made from blue foam, highlighted the person’s real height in the visual uniformity of the sole instead of at the head, like a walking bar graph. Entitled, Level, the project was produced for the Personal Absurdities show at Galerie Gebauer in Berlin.