Image Credits
Duration
30.05. - 31.10.2021
Location
Austrian Sculpture Park
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Anchored on a grassy slope, Judith Fegerl’s archaic-looking, open and yet slightly dystopian structure is mounted with various panels. Coloured by our experience, we are reminded of the constructions fixed on roofs and houses to hold photovoltaic panels. Roughly knee-high, the functional steel frame holds nine solar panels sourced from the PVRE2 research project, some of them 20 years old, of different sizes, production and areas of application. The recycling and repair of old PV panels are the research focus of this alliance of Silicon Labs Graz, the University of Leoben and OFI (Independent Research and Testing Institute) in Vienna.
The artist is not concerned with formulating a form – instead she visualises systems and relationships, examining their transient and provisional nature. This is done in the gesture of a jotted-down drawing rather than as a rigidly positioned statement. Here Fegerl shows energy sources and their technical, contentual and temporal progressions, which are understood as a fundamental achievement of technical revolutions, but may also perform their useful function as concealed and as invisibly as possible.
In this way, the downsides of ‘clean energy’ – in particular the problems of production and disposal – are explored, while the residual energy remaining in the panels that cannot escape is considered, together with the different forms, surfaces and formats, changes in colour and material. The recomposition and installation of the used parts given to the artist opens up the theme of ‘second life’, appearing optionally in the possibilities of separation of precious metal and other materials or repair. In the knowledge that part of the Austrian Sculpture Park was once a landfill site, Judith Fegerl reflects on the attempt to sustain material and resource cycles.
Connected to one another, differently shaped cells – round or angular depending on the stage of development – have an aesthetic structure reminiscent of constructivist and minimalist works of art, as well as urban planning considerations. Silicon cells disrupt ordered patterns and produce the effect of ice flowers on the surface. Both separated and at the same time reassembled, they appear broken, but in fact they still generate electricity – they are active factors. So their charged nature continues, they still convey energy; liberated from any useful function, they stand for themselves.
Generally perceived as an ‘eyesore’ on roofs, here the panels emerge as autonomous statements. Fegerl is less interested in their current state than in their inherent energy and the untapped potential they hold. Questions about expiry dates, reanimation or circularity – i.e. questions about time – converge in an artistic reformulation with questions about space, its function and availability.
Technical-formal parameters of the rectangular format, in which round, angular, mono- and polycrystalline cells are applied to a plastic layer and laminated, as well as the arranged quantities or the colour palette, encounter aesthetic considerations of repetitive pattern structures that reflect and inherently bear continuity and infinity.
Architectural principles are investigated as much as the issue of pattern recognition or the individual panels, reminiscent of the woven carpets whose production is usually associated with the feminine. Classically, this can be read in the Bauhaus structure. We know that the loom represents the cradle of the computer, which in turn has masculine connotations. At the same time, cell structures form the basis of life and make any gender allocation appear obsolete.
In all of these aspects, many relations open up and shift through this work. Fegerl, who comes from the field of technology, takes the liberty of intuitively composing the given, choosing to arrange the cells playfully rather than systematically. This contrast and correlation between technology and emotion/intuition is also accentuated by the intense blue tones of the panels.
The title sunset consciously refers to the complexity of the technical expression ‘server sunset’. The term server – implying both service and constant function – is coupled here with the romantic topos of the sunset. This euphemistic term is applied in economics when production has reached the end of its capacity and usefulness, and is withdrawn from the market due to uselessness. The sun shines on each of the panels, it is the basic condition for their use, which is inscribed with the ‘sunset clause’ – a predetermined expiry date.
Logical materials bearing traces of wear, evidence of former energy sources, stripped of their function, are what attract Judith Fegerl for her work. She draws on these, exploring them as new potential raw material resources. For her, ‘revers’ (reverse), the anagram of ‘server’, is an important term that maintains the tension in the reversible relationship between art and viewer.
Fegerl thus delves into what lies beneath the visible, the deeper layers of architectures, spaces, surfaces and landscapes. In doing so, she interrupts constructed circuits of thought and opens up new perspectives and perceptual possibilities. Functionalities are examined, new identity structures facilitated. She explores apparent discrepancies such as technology and body, mechanical design and development of awareness, organic and inorganic – so revealing, juxtaposing, connecting and rethinking them.
Further information
The Austrian Sculpture Park invites national and international artists and art classes to engage with the park and develop their own temporary works for the sculpture park.