October , 2019
This installation retraces the process of its making. Hot glass and textile, with their different material properties and aggregate conditions, have met and left marks.
Glass is characterized and shaped by its change of aggregate condition. In its hot state it is malleable, adaptable. When it cools down, it loses flexibility and becomes fragile. Textiles on the other hand are soft solids, they are ‘indulgent to resistance’ and gain their strength from defying a final shape.
When the materials meet, these properties are at play but also trick each other. The delicacy of the textile and the temperature of the glass are decisive factors in this interplay. The hot glass is not shaped in any way by its encounter with the fabric (except for a moment’s suspension of its fall). The textile does not get to exert its tender strength but is burnt through.
The accompanying poem Is an account of what happens to the materials in the process:
(German)
Temperatur erhöht
Aufgenommen, reingeblasen, fallen gelassen
Gefallen, aber nicht aufgeschlagen, von nirgendwo losgelöst
Im Fall ausgedehnt
Im Fall durch einen Festkörper erkaltet
Form des Falls festgehalten
Loch hinterlassen
_
Horizontal gespannt
Annähernd geebnet
Von der Hitze braun gefärbt
Von der Hitze entflammt
Nach kurzem Widerstand durchgebrannt
Fläche vertikal durchdrungen
Loch hinterlassen lassen
(English)
temperature raised
gathered, blown into, dropped
fell but never hit, undetached
expanded in the fall
cooled to the shape of falling through
left a hole
_
horizontally stretched
almost evened out
stained by the heat
ignited by the heat
burnt through after a moment's resistance
surface vertically pierced
left for a hole to be left