One Man System
2009-2011, objects in diverse dimensions and materials: Porcelain, silicon, wax, wood, soap, chocolate, bronze, coke bottle, stamp, offset prints, screen prints.
On the street in Basel, I found an empty doll, devoid of any content, that had been thrown out. Its use or purpose was unknown to me. Its simplified, hollow form and dirt-cheap plastic suggested that its body had once served as a container. its frightening, zombie smile seemed to me to communicate that something had been lost there.
Attracted to this figure, I plucked it off the ground and took it home. It seemed to be a caricature of the feeling of emptiness we get when we leave one of those giant shopping malls. I understood its format to be a mold; I understood that this was what the doll already was, that this intention was already written on it. It was a figure to be reproduced as to occupy space in the world, a symbol and sculpture of a banal being. I called it ONE MAN.
From there, I created the ONE MAN SYSTEM machine, a contraption through which ONE MAN prints itself in positive and negative forms. This made me reflect on industrial production and the visual forms of this production with which we coexist, these everyday sculptures. ONE MAN turned itself into a mold for anything.
I created all sorts of products: ONE MAN DELIGHT, a candle; ONE MAN GENTLE, a bar of soap; ONE MAN DELICIOUS, a shape made out of chocolate; ONE MAN COOL, a cooling sleeve for a soft drink bottle; ONE MAN CALL BUTTON, a doorbell; ONE MAN HORIZON, a sculpture in sand at the beach; ONE MAN AIR, a hole puncher; ONE MAN NIGHT GUARD, a nightlight; ONE MAN NO RISK, a safe; ONE MAN DOUBLE SIDE, a mirrored box…
