Simple Machine

Part of the Laundry Services – Open Studio Exhibition

Simple Machine focuses on the oscillation between visibility and invisibility. The installation therefore isolates one particular moment: the moment of transgression from visibility to invisibility of one’s own actions.

A projector is placed on a mobile construction of about 1 m height and 0,5 m width. Via Wi-Fi the projector is connected to an iPad, on which the visitor or passer-by finds an input screen with 10-15 questions. A little flap is fixed in front of the projector’s lens. It is programmed with a special code that opens and closes the flap at certain moments or when the visitor arrived at specific questions. Thus, the screen of the iPad is being projected onto an exterior wall of a house. The relation between the user and the projection is not obvious to passersby. It is recognizable only to the users themselves. The questions or tasks are deliberately simple. For instance, the question of the favorite color or the task of drawing a rectangle. Neither is it about sharing intimate information about oneself, nor about a clear recognition of the relation between the user of the iPad and the projected answers. The setting rather focuses on the subtile moment of tipping from social visibility to invisibility and the associated effects on our thinking and acting. Like a mobile experimental laboratory in which we can observe our position and actions within the social fabric.

www.peterreischl.com

Fact Box

Simple Machine