transformer @ Kunstcentrum Hengelo
Transformer
An installation from Theo Harmelink and Patrick Mangnus
Transformer:
There’s still so much to do and investigate, but due to various circumstances, it lacks the abilities to do so. To accomplish it in the end, images have to transform with all effort and open to all possibilities, such as: Chemistry, alchemy, biotechnology, D.N.A.-changing, - cloning, etc…
Both artists live and work in Deventer and have a great mutual respect for eachothers work and method of creating. Theo’s wish to show his 3D work in a larger context, has been the starting point for this elaborate collaboration.
The outside of the installation refers to an old shed, or shelter in a garden, whilst the inside is contradictory to the outside. The interior is a white hospital-like laboratory, but in the same time not of this world, like in 18th century gothic novels like Frankenstein.
The installation suggests a process that starts with a drawing, ideas from the outside, controlled and put in by men.
“Machines” as a part of the laboratory read and translate these images and start to create these translations into experiments.
In this world of science fiction and fantasy, images are not made by people, but through machines, computers, D.N.A. accellerators, chemical and alchemystical processes in which the influence of the human effort is very much the subject of debate. How much is still under controll and what part is wanted and what are negative or positive side effects?
The machines, processes and systems are starting to lead their own lives and this comes to live in the experiments shown in the laboratory.
It is a critical, yet poetical image towards the growing influences the human race wants to have on nature and the ongoing automation in which people can easily be replaced by machines, computersystems and processes.
When the viewer enters this transformer, he will enter an environment in which all his senses will be needed. He will sense the border between the possible and the impossible.
