shot. Neu has put the
ÒDevilÕs TubeÓ, which is missing any equipment of this kind, to
one side as a Òsenses filter for parasocial interactionsÓ. There are
six cloths hanging over one another on the display, the stand or
structure, which represent something like a filter system.
I would like to address it as a metaphorical image-editing
programme that filters, optimizes and limits the impressions or even
controls and defuses by censoring them. Neu gives form to the sense
material with wax, which is collected in an experimental construction,
the Òsense filter for parasocial interactionsÓ. The display consists of
six stretched cloths which function as sieves. Sense impressions strike
against these and accumulate according to the fineness of the filters.
This device functions in a way parallel to an image-editing program:
the sense material, that is, the incoming signals, are accumulated and
optimised or limited and discarded. Represented here in wax is what
collects as ÒsedimentÓ, installed physically on the plinth in place of
the figure as a lump. We presume that it records the sum of Òparasocial
interactionsÓ that are collected this evening.
2. Screens of antiquity
Neu uses beeswax as
Joseph Beuys and Wolfgang Laib did before him, but he could not be
described as an imitator for doing so; because wax is a base material
as old as culture. Many people are familiar with the myth of Daedalus
and Icarus, who used wax to attach feathers to their wings forgetting
that the wax could melt when close to the sun. However, few people know
that Daedalus was employed as a caster of bronze on Crete and required
the wax in order to form the figures that were to be cast in bronze.
The lost-wax casting technique required great quantities of this highly
energetic material, which is already concentrated due to the gathering
activity of bees, before it is taken away from them by people in order
that the bees restock to the quantities they require. In this respect
wax represents an original form of the accumulation of capital and is
also connected in the myth of Daidalus with the production of images.
Used as a metaphor for the accumulation of sense impressions, wax
makes manifest, in addition to material wealth, the collection of
cultural capital, which can be
IV. Plastic measuring and imaging methods
We can thus translate archaic experiences, which generated ideas about the continued effects of sense impressions, onto media and materials which record and save what is perceived by the senses in analogue and digital. Transposed into measuring and recording processes, these are one of the foundations of our culture. Mika NeuÕs objects are positioned here in order to approach their magic origins, which have settled in old and new media connections. The objects with the title Òabsorbencium of parasocial action 1Ó and Òabsorbencium of parasocial action 2Ó provide measuring instruments dealing with the possibility of measuring behavioural phenomena - unexplainable until now - in this exhibition room. In doing so, Neu starts from the connections, unacknowledged by consciousness based on positivistic science, although they have relevance in themselves. If phenomena are activated, which might have escaped previous communication and behavioural research, it is possible that they will be captured by the collectors installed in both of the objects In this way the interaction in this room can be collected and recorded. But who evaluates it, and what methods play a role in this process? Both screens are made of gossamer threads that have been stretched and drizzled with beeswax as a carrier substance. What isnÕt captured falls unfiltered to the ground. Who doesnÕt remember celebrations and gatherings at which candles, stuck in the necks of bottles, burn down and have to be replaced several times? Keeping remnants such as these makes manifest the wish that traces of all the events and thoughts of the
