Architectural environments are frequently laden with the psychological investments of their inhabitants or users. Pipilotti Rist's large-scale installation Himalaya's Sister's Living Room (2000), simulates such a space, namely a domestic interior, into which the audience is invited. Inside, Rist projects videos onto various surfaces, suggesting a view into the thoughts, memories, and anxieties that lie hidden within the space of the household. Louise Bourgeois’s Cell V similarly invites the audience’s voyeurism but blocks physical access, its prison-like structure defining an inaccessible, psychologically charged space.

Of course many artists have explored interior pyschological states not through the creation of installations but in two-dimensional works, especially photographs. In her 2001–03 photocollage Her, Her, Her and Her, Roni Horn produces a labyrinthine vision of the women's locker room at a famous Reykjavik swimming pool. Moving from panel to panel viewers catch glimpses of blurred figures, always disappearing around a corner or caught in a reflection, like ghosts trapped in an eerily claustrophobic chamber.

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT:
Pipilotti Rist, Himalaya's Sister's Living Room, 2000. Video installation with 7 projectors and 7 players in and around furniture and various objects, and wallpaper mounted on wood, with sound, dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Falls Church, VA 2004.113. Photo: Larry Lamay, courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York

Louise Bourgeois, Cell V, 1991. Wood, glass, paint and metal, 232 x 209.5 x 204.5 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. 92.4006. © Louise Bourgeois/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Roni Horn, Her, Her, Her, and Her, 2002-03. 64 black-and-white photographs, 30.5 x 30.5 cm each, 245.1 x 244.5 cm overall. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Promised gift, Perry Wolfman. T124.2006 © Roni Horn