Archive: Issue No. 82, June 2004

Do you feel a twinge of resentment towards your iron or perhaps a hint of anticipation at the sound of a boiling kettle? Does a twirling fan emit peaceful waves of respite or do you grit your teeth at the noise of the coffee grinder?

The relationships we have with our household appliances form the basis of an installation by Nicola Grobler, entitled 'The Enigma Machine: unraveling the domestic experience'. She has chosen the domestic space to explore the psychological responses and emotions encoded within it, made visible in the generic appliances that comprise her installation.

The sight of tightly bound dishcloths spinning from two electric mixers fixed to the wall is first to greet you at Erdmann Contemporary, the newly opened gallery space in Cape Town. The humble dishcloth, subverted in function and form to flare out and collapse in a swirling skirt-shaped pattern, is at once strangely beautiful and comic in its new decorative role.

This sight is just the beginning. Seven separate but interlinked works vie for attention on the bare cement floor, each representing a different day of the week. A group of ironing boards dominate the scene, their surfaces punctured with holes through which delicate organza tubing flows. While connecting the boards, the tubing renders them unable to function.

Scattered around in interlinked systems are kettles, irons, a hot plate, mixers, electric fans, hairdryers and other household appliances. Each is controlled by a timer to perform its particular function in a larger symphony of sound and movement.

In this context, however, each electronic endeavour is framed with pathos. The hairdryers - Grobler calls them "fragile, humanised appliances" - try with great determination but limited success to intermittently blow up light organza tubes resting on a suspended net above them.

Other appliances reveal themselves more subtly as you enter the space. At eye level on the far wall, a kitchen towel dispenser moves in a measured rhythm of raveling and unraveling Carlton towels. Above the eye-line, a pulley system slowly moves a series of brightly coloured material pieces across the room, strung out like washing on a line.

There is a definite sense of unease walking among the appliances. In part, it's the presence of danger: the boiling kettle, the heated plate, the steaming iron, the profusion of exposed cables and plugs. It is also the menacing invisible hand that controls the mechanics as one wanders through.

This interaction between the work, the viewer and environment is integral to the piece. Grobler says it is a deliberate device employed to immerse and entangle the viewer in the work.

The ambient noise that accompanies the installation is part of its meaning. She says: "If you think of the way one lives with appliances - the sound of the fridge that becomes white noise in the background - this is a way of involving these appliances that one almost takes for granted and giving them the special status of artworks while also keeping them mundane."

The work is intriguing - far more so than a glance at stills of the piece or a walkabout with the plugs turned off could reveal. A flick of the switch transforms the installation into a pulsating entity with a rhythm and mind of its own. Grobler has paid a fine attention to detail and each part is assembled with great consideration and conscious effort, revealed in the exhibition's accompanying in-depth textual analysis.

It is bound to elicit skepticism from viewers unconvinced that a household appliance can be transformed into a work of art. The found object, however, has a long tradition in art history ever since Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal back in 1914. Grobler's genre, though narrowly focused, is refreshingly international in its aesthetic.

Everyone can relate to the home as an insular place but the installation has to be seen to experience its full effect. Grobler says: "It's a subjective experience ... it would be good for people to access it from their own point of view. For myself, it's a conflicting situation of boredom, frustration and oppression but also a space that opens up for the imagination with sensual and erotic things moving through it."

Opens: May 17
Closes: June 5