MICHAEL HIRSCHBICHLER

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archival pig­ment prints, edi­tions of 3+2 APs
2012 — ongoing

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Work­ing with per­spec­tives, a stan­dard medi­um of archi­tec­tur­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, spa­tio-archi­tec­ton­ic frag­ments from var­i­ous his­tor­i­cal epochs are inves­ti­gat­ed, manip­u­lat­ed, and mon­taged into com­po­si­tions that – through scal­ing, rep­e­ti­tion, con­trast, and estrange­ment – become increas­ing­ly absurd. Medi­at­ing the steril­i­ty of every­day func­tion­al space and the sculp­tur­al exu­ber­ance of rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al build­ings, the work forges an insight into built real­i­ty, uncov­er­ing from seem­ing objec­tiv­i­ty and func­tion­al­ism the exis­ten­tial dra­ma of chore­o­graphed designs and spa­tial con­tes­ta­tion. End­less enfilades unfold in monot­o­nous rep­e­ti­tion, aban­doned scenery flows between harsh, tow­er­ing build­ings … men appear lost, dom­i­nat­ed by their built envi­ron­ment. In these scenes, unset­tling but famil­iar sit­u­a­tions emerge from a manip­u­lat­ed analy­sis of archi­tec­tur­al ref­er­ences. Ide­o­log­i­cal­ly-loaded archi­tec­ture and the crime scenes of human his­to­ry are set in rela­tion to one anoth­er – con­fronta­tion­al, over­lapped, estranged – crit­i­cal­ly the­ma­tiz­ing the mech­a­nisms of intim­i­da­tion and over­whelm­ing used in the exer­cise of pow­er. Arche­types and palaces, mon­u­ments and land­marks, cathe­drals and tem­ples, pris­ons and camps, fortress­es, bunkers and superblocks, are woven into an archi­tec­tur­al phan­tas­mago­ry which, though fic­tion­al, are formed from exist­ing designs.

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