Melting of the iron body (collab with Laura McGlinchey)

Melting of the iron body was a collaboration with the Scottish artist Laura McGlinchey. Together, we created an installation concept based on the quote from the film Metropolis: “The mediator between head and hands must be the heart.” As a result, we transformed the entire Shedhalle at the Eisenwerk into an installation divided into three main spaces: “Hand,” “Head,” and “Heart.” Performances were filmed in each of the constructed spaces. All performance materials were part of the setup and were integrated into the final installation.

Exhibition walk
Teaser Videoperformance
Install/Deinstall

Enter

Hand

„Give me the big space, I’m ready for it.“ 

„Heya I might need a hand with this, could you shortly come help me?“

„Oh yeah, it‘s quite handy“ 

„Handcraft is not really in my skillset.“

Never work. 
No pressure. 
Get up, work immediately. 
Get up, work immediately. 
No pressure. 
Ne travaillez jamais. 

I wanna hold your hand 
and travel through the spaces, 
through, letters, colours, sounds, objects and thousands of past headlines. 

Wanna walk without going somewhere, just stray 
around 
and get lost. 

Our holding hands connect 
our skins, nerve endings, 
rhythms and the moments 
we share together. 

Hands as mediators, 
but also instruments. 
Hands that made an iron factory run, producing countless metal ware.
Hands that today sustain a cultural building inhabited by a diverse community. 
Hands that make the evolution of culture and exchange possible. 

Remember the furrowed hands that operated heavy machines, 
that wiped the sweat 
from foreheads, 
greeted one 
another, that clenched 
in rage,
shacked 
because of excessive 
alcohol consumption 
or slackened 
from fatigue. 
Hands that carried 
heavy weight together
that gently touched 
one another,
expressed, 
what words 
never could. 

Hands as bones
veins, flesh
or rubber gloves, 
water, paper, colour, 
symbols,
pictures, 
art.

Hands 
that turn a multitude 
into a unity,
that realise 
what could not be realised 
alone. 

Multiple strings of skills, 
of personal stories, 
histories, herstories 
that act alongside 
and melt 
into one big mosh 
of togetherness. 

A spark of embers 
becomes a melting pot, 
can you feel the unstopple energy huh 
what did you expect? 

But wait — 
Isn’t there a danger in blind plurality? 
Where is this collective energy being directed to? 

Head

„I want to think before I do“ 

„It‘s about finding the right questions to ask.“

„Artistic counterparts activate one another.“

„That pretty much sums up how the two of us work.“

Everything you see is light and shadow.
Always different though in the neverending flow of secular motion.
That’s also why mirrors never get boring. 
Especially when they trap you in a photo. Or infinity. Or both.

The cogs make the machine run. We’re all part of it, aren’t we?
Why should an artist do art just for themselves?
The real life of the artwork starts with the external perception.
Thanks for being here. 

Mary Coleridge „The Other Side of a Mirror“
I sat before my glass one day,
And conjured up a vision bare, 
Unlike the aspects glad and gay,
That erst were found reflected there –
The vision of a woman, wild
With more than womanly despair.

Her hair stood back on either side
A face bereft of loveliness.
It had no envy now to hide
What once no man on earth could guess.
It formed the thorny aureole
Of hard, unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open – not a sound
Came though the parted lines of red, 
Whate’er it was, the hideous wound
In silence and secret bled.
No sigh relieved her speechless woe
She had no voice to speak her dread

And in her lurid eyes there shone
The dying flame of life’s desire, 
Made mad because its hope was gone, 
And kindled at the leaping fire
Of jealousy and fierce revenge, 
And strength that could not change nor tire

Shade of a shadow in the glass,
O set the crystal surface free!
Pass – as the fairer visions pass – 
Nor ever more return, to be
The ghost of a distracted hour,
That heard me whisper: – ‘I am she!’

If you look at someone else in a mirror image long enough – will it become yours? 

Find yourself
in the blue or pink space –
gendered colours? Blinded thinking. 

„You‘re amazing.“
„We ain’t no different, you and me are the same“, tells me the sundancer. 
Are we, 
in the face of a mirror,
in the face of the light‘s colour which was given to us? 
Sorry I mean which was spotted on us.
A step away of one’s spot
and a hug are more of an answer than any combination of words. 

Look at this ever changing rectangular picture of hyperreality in front of you,
fleshy shells
merged with fluffy soul bubbles.
Not always though
sometimes also hard and spiky.
Different shapes and sizes but
the eyes all lead you to the same spring. 

I like fluffy clouds, I like fluffy clouds
I like fluffy mouths, fluffy thoughts, oh thank you sweet mister or misses
 I mean MisX
but obviously it’s also sometimes fun to get cut cut cut.
It’s Saturday night who doesn‘t wanna be a bit nut nut nuts.
Not too deep though, no no.
It would be too distracting o-ho
Your ears are united in the flow of a voice, your vision in the mirror’s world,
but what do you smell?

Budum budum
Budum budum
Budum budum

What was left to say.
The last room, we’re very close. We are here in the space of the heart – can’t you hear it? 
You‘ve may realised that I won’t give you any easy answers. There are no easy answers, though pretty annoying questions. 
But hey, that makes the whole thing fun, doesn’t it, my little wretches? :-*

When this building was still a factory, it was powered by one single water mill at a river. One could find it behind the building. Meanwhile only an idea of the river remains. Back then thanks to brilliant engineering all machines of the iron factory were connected to the mill. It was basically the heart, sustaining everything with energy. Hard objects were produced by machines run by the arguably soft element of water. Of course, there are countless intermediate steps in between. Nevertheless, hardness and softness overlap once again and create something new together. 

The mediator between head and hands must be heart. 
The mediator between softness and hardness can be melting. 
The mediator between past and future must be the present.

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