​Succession of the Secession Siren:

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The space of the K-Haus Kino windows in Vienna, Austria, is an aquarium made up of a series of black and white analog photographs on plexi glass with the title Secession Mermaid. Revolving around the spiral shape, the Secession Mermaid series appears at times to be a part of the Secession era's ornamental spiral and at the same time apart from it. Femininity of the female figure placed within the framework of the female architecture of the spiral, appears to exist at the point between the so-called useful and mature emotions. It seems to be caught within, but at the same time finding sanctuary within, presenting the feminine or the notion of the feminine as if being within a box - a confession box perhaps. At the same time, it seems to display a red-light box display in a monochrome. In this contradiction the line blurs in terms of both the feminine as well as the spiral shape (architecture (ornament)). Is what we see merely an ornament slipping into decoration or the visualization of mistreatment of inner femininity? Is it the woman that is the decorative additive to the spiral shape ornament or the spiral shape ornament that is the decoration finding its place as the feminine of the woman?

 

Enabling the viewer to feel as if he/she is at the same time both viewer and the one being viewed - from inside the window as well as outside of it, it is breaking down the line between inner and outer reality, behaving just like gas which at once adapts to any given space filing it to the limit...  searching for a way to spread even beyond it to further infect, just as ornaments infect the buildings of the Vienna Secession era - an inspiration for this series.

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