Industrial Stalactites and Stalagmites Series - Drei verschiedene Installationen / Three different Installations
2010, New York
New York City’s appearance with many building sites was an inspiration. Specifically, the scaffolding tunnels which give, on one hand protection and security, but on the other, a feeling of obstruction and restriction. This contradiction in experience builds the basis for the project Industrial Stalactites and Stalagmites.
The ideas have been transferred into different formal interpretations.
Stalactite no 1.1 is a floating scaffolding made from foam pipes and boards. The soft material contradicts the straight form of the structure. From far away we have the deception of a metal sculpture but from close, the object starts to dematerialize and detach from its purposes. It raises questions of reliability. It is a metaphor for today’s precarious global structures. For example it looks as if we can rely on our financial institutions, but in fact everything, like the scaffolding sculpture, is floating and bubbling.
Stalactite no1.2 is a paper sculpture which expresses an unnatural weightlessness, as if the scaffolding is growing from top to the bottom. It seems to become an industrial Stalactite Cave. In Stalactites and Stalagmites no 3.1, the interweaving architectural forms are enclosing. It evokes a feeling of restriction but in the same time a graphical attraction to the overlapping forms. Whereas the Stalactite no 1.3 plays with the juxtaposition of nature and construction, the digital photomontage can be read critically as a deterioration but also as a desire for escaping from the cityscape.
Finally, all these interpretations instigate a dialog between penetration and blocking of space. A transformation of the literal industrial aesthetic into a more lyrical metaphor.