Susanne Schuricht
Double Room, Corpus 01 | Schlossberg
18. Juli – 31. Juli 2008

A spatial body with sliding elements - Double Room, Corpus 01 - is set up on the Schlossberg in Arnsberg

"The room-body is accessible, its parts are within reach, you can move them and thus change perspectives, create a section that you can change again in the next moment. The spatial body separates me from the world around me and brings me particularly close to it." [Susanne Schuricht]

In 1452, Leon Battista Alberti defined architecture in "De Re Aedificatoria" as "...harmony and unison of all parts, which is achieved in such a way that nothing could be taken away, added or changed without destroying the whole." Art, in turn, is designed in the context of the corpus to bring this whole into consciousness. The "Double Room, Corpus 01" is a horizontal cuboid, white, with sliding walls on the ceiling and sides, just over one and a half meters high and two and a half meters wide. It allows ever new views analogous to the movements and adjustments of the sliding walls: views of the person from inside the room to the outside and of the person inside from the outside. The result is the framing of views from the inside to the outside and from the outside to the inside. The views to the outside allow views of the landscape and landscape-defining elements. The views inwards show a rectangular white background in which views of the landscape and fragments of people inside open up. The posture of the people inside is determined by the height of the room. They squat or lie in the room and look out, and are always partially concealed by the sliding walls.

Architecture can be defined by its space-creating character and consists of the duality of space and shell. It creates a boundary between outside and inside. This shell creates a space for people to stay and work, as well as to store their belongings, protected from the undesirable influences of the outside world. The corpus is different. It makes us aware of the duality of interior and exterior space and thus gives us the opportunity to locate and spiritualize ourselves in relation to both spaces. The user in the room will be in the room and adjust his view of the outside himself, while at the same time symbolizing for the viewer this act of self-chosen gaze in the form of a framed image of himself in white space. This is possible because this space as a work of art does not represent any functional social, political or economic, i.e. concrete reason for its existence, apart from being art. The shape of the corpus, its form and cubature, its proportions, are all aesthetic aspects, which in this case can be derived from the function and use through the flexibility of the sliding walls. Essential to the meaning of the work is the interaction between the artwork and the viewer and the viewer's contemplation of the interior. It is an authentic art experience of the world within the world. It corresponds to the aim of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in the "Dialectic of Enlightenment". They call for authentic culture as something that is primarily self-sufficient and has this as its purpose. It promotes the human imagination by providing inspiration, but unlike the culture industry, it leaves room for independent human thought and action. In this sense, authentic culture does not seek to imitate reality, but to go far beyond it.1 [Wolf Guenter Thiel]

Susanne Schuricht lives and works in Berlin. Her focus is on installations and photographic works. Susanne Schuricht has exhibited nationally and internationally.