Luiza Margan: Altered relations
Installation
cardboard, foil, plastic, rotating mechanism, bulbs, sound, stove pipe, smoke device
2008/ exhibited in P74 gallery/ Ljubljana

A big marble chimney stove from my appartment in Turnegasse 26 is reconstructed in real size and transfered into gallery space. An empty chimney pipe is positioned in the next room, producing smoke. A black box with fake fire flames, inspired by kitchy fake chimney fires, stands in a dark room producing moving flames through a rotating mechanism and sound.

The installation researches the functional, historical and emotional values of objects.
The reconstructed objects have once kept a central role in home. Their function was changed with the development of capitalism, sa described in Baudrillards "The System of Objects" we are set free from the function of the object but not yet from its presence. The object becomes a monument, a souvenir. It is no longer here to be possessed or used, but to be bought and observed.

The installation is a topographical fragmentation of the replaced values seen through reconstruction of objects. Since their function has been replaced, the massive marble stoves and fireplaces have lost the central function in home, but have preserved their monumental physical presence. In many homes the fireplace stays as unused part of the architecture, a monument of wishful social status and lost values. This dysfunctional role of an object serves as a basis for the re-construction and as a parameter for specific social relations. On the other hand, the reconstruction of an artificial fire is inspired by the kitschy electrical decorative stoves with fake flames. The “fire” is projected on the wall out of a simple black box(containing self made mechanism). The "warmth" becomes a projection of image and sound.