Neža Kokol
Thesis: Spaces Inverted
Taming the Untamable
It was Heidegger who pointed out that man's relationship to the world is in constant flux, never capable of being grasped in its totality. And yet we try to control it: be it through knowledge (facts), language (standard language), world-building (zoos), behaviour (code of conduct), algorithms etc.
An aquarium is a tool used for making something impalpable palpable, turning what is uncontrollable into something controlled. Similarly to the 19th-century dioramas, it represents life on a smaller scale while simultaneously functioning as a stage, turning its contents into characters and props, often using the language of icons and archetypes.
While the focus of the book is mainly on ungraspable spaces, the installation is spatializing the ungraspable: each of the aquariums represents one characteristic of life (temporality, elusiveness, complexity, risk, inter-influence, dichotomy, and repetition) that shows how certain things in life remain uncontrollable, even when trapped in a glass box - for they transcend the human factor.
