Merlin Reichart

The shape of the sculpture is a reference to a folk festival, the Hamburg DOM. However, a play on words changes its meaning: where once there was anticipation, there is now unease, and so the sculpture also functions as a threshold between two places. On one side is the fairground as an escapist refuge—on the other, public space as an ominous future.

The portrait of a young person adorns the sidebar of Eufearia. As viewers approach the mirror that makes up the work, they can see themselves with a slight delay—but also a series of viewers who came before them. While the mirror initially refers to private space, in a broader sense it alludes to the representation of the self in the digital realm and thus in the public sphere.

As the word creation in the title Eufearia suggests, two contrasting interpretations can be found in the work: on the one hand, the (positive) acceptance of the possibilities offered by the digital world, especially those of self-expression. Traces of personal design can be found in the mirror: a bunch of keys with a colorful tag, a smiley sticker attached to the frame, and a tribal tattoo. On the other hand, however, there is the unwanted transformation of the viewers from active participants into “users/products.” Without their consent, they are processed by the work into data sets whose purpose is not revealed to the viewers.

All attempts at resistance—broken glass encased in concrete on the left side, pointed rivets on the right side of the frame—ultimately remain as a resistant but (failed) attempt to oppose appropriation. They are now only visual references and relics of a bygone era, which no longer stand a chance against the (hostile) technology that has taken over the object inside.

The plastic chair “Monobloc” is one of those objects that can be found almost everywhere in the world. Due to its simple industrial production from a single molded piece of plastic, it is the epitome of capitalist mass production. Its weather resistance makes it a globally popular piece of furniture for outdoor areas such as campsites, front yards, or restaurants.

In his video work Habitat, Reichart places the plastic chair in the setting of the painting A Stream in the Forest (1865) by Asher Brown Durand, which idealizes the idea of “untouched nature” without human intervention. Although current ecological contributions, such as the works of philosopher Timothy Morton or Philippe Descola's “Beyond Nature and Culture” (2013), problematize the juxtaposition of nature and culture, the Romantic understanding of nature as the other of culture persists in society.

A blazing flame burns on the seat of the plastic chair in Habitat. On the one hand, fire is a tool that humans use to make nature and the environment their own. For this reason, Prometheus—the fire bringer—is also considered the originator of human civilization in Greek mythology: with him, humanity begins to subjugate nature. On the other hand, in Reichart's work, fire is a symbol of the momentous destruction of our own habitat, which has been progressing since the Industrial Revolution and is becoming increasingly apparent in the current challenges of climate change. Even though the flame in Reichart's video work does not go out, it reminds us that human time on Earth is limited.