Tension Thing

Installation, 2006

Human hair is embedded into a hanging porcelain sphere. Each strand of hair is cabled and finally connected to a high voltage generator. In a slow but pulsating rhythm the object charges and discharges which causes the hair to rise and fall smoothly.

Combining organic and anorganic material this hybrid object creates a connection between emotional excitement and physical voltage.

A personal feeling or emotion is being isolated, extracted, transformed and reimplanted into an object, that is again sensitivly acting upon the audience.

"Fegerl’s interest in the instant of merging of organic and anorganic material erupts again in her project „Tension Object“: In a globe made out of porcelain and covered by natural human hair she induces thousands of Volts; because of the tension the hair stands on end repeatedly. To this idiom, usually expressing a state of fear and terror, Fegerl alludes; By exhibiting this haptic and at the same time awe-inspiring object she provokes within the observer an emotional contradiction between fear and curiosity." by Nina Schedlmayer