Olivia Erlanger “Appliance” at Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna

Composed by the artist and executed on the opening evening, the engage in Humour in the Drinking water Coolant is the story of a lady haunted by the appliances in her new residence. Working with the participate in as its beginning stage, the installation lingers concerning domestic suburban inside and theatre set. The play’s title references the aqueous humour of the eye and mechanical fluids discovered in engines, revising the metaphor of a body as architecture to system as appliance. Inferring unique attitudes, course and aspirations through item placement and inside firm, the set up unfolds as an archive, a looking through area and a place for action. Erlanger offers an atmosphere encouraged by Norman Klein’s concept of “scripted space” and educated by historical exhibitions these kinds of as MoMA’s “Houses of the Future” (1932) and “Good Design” (1950). In this article, the gallery turns into a fractured, clear house supplying a psychic isometric view. The format and function of various rooms of the household are described by their appliances relatively than perimeter partitions.

Set through a séance to rid the house of its haunted aura, the participate in explores the pan-psychic opportunity of domestic objects. The appliances, now equipped to communicate, specific their emotional life, rife with dissatisfaction, sadness, and finally a desire to connect and really like. The psychological outcomes of their declining usage and features antagonizes the idea of technological advancement as a constructive growth, reframing it as a implies of escape. What does ageing necessarily mean for these objects “born” on the assembly line, whose areas are simply changed or whose obsolescence is previously planned?

at Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna
right up until Oct 29, 2022