Susanne Jakob Devices for Approaching CHRISTIAN HASUCHA Ms. K. Visits Kirchheim unter Teck At the invitation of C. Hasucha, Susanne K. traveled to Kirchheim unter Teck on April 14, 1997. From early morning onward, she strolled through the winding streets of the town. Her companion noted the events and things that captured her attention. Perspectives and views that struck her as noteworthy were measured and marked. A few weeks later, the viewing gates were installed here, allowing residents and passersby to experience the fleeting impressions of a day-tripper. Prologue During the planning phase of his public intervention in Kirchheim unter Teck, Christian Hasucha brought along a model tourist, Ms. K. from Cologne. Ms. K. was tasked with spending a day strolling through the historic town center of Kirchheim and identifying viewpoints that captured her attention and interest. These locations and situations were noted and measured by Christian Hasucha, who also defined a specific viewing direction for each. In the following weeks, the artistic concept was presented to the relevant authorities at the town hall. Site visits were conducted, and permits were obtained for seven viewing gates, which were to be installed in Kirchheim's town center for one summer. Coated in a gray and rust-colored protective layer, the viewing gates are only distinguishable from the usual array of signs in public spaces upon closer inspection. Unlike these signs, they do not command or prohibit, but rather exist as a silent challenge. Resembling small traffic islands and equipped with a viewfinder and a cut-out, reddish-brown sign, the viewing gates offer every passerby the opportunity to experience the perspective of a stranger and, in doing so, to gain their own new perceptual experiences, distinct from their familiar ones. The Postcard A standard postcard was sent out as the project's informational and promotional tool. Its imagery is taken from the visual language of tourism: an idealized section of the historic small town with geranium-adorned half-timbered houses under a deep blue sky. Only a circle embossed in the center of the postcard, which focuses on parts of the "beautiful scene," is unsettling and poses a puzzle. The Project The postcard plays with preconceived notions based on the familiar and known. It therefore awakens expectations that are deliberately disappointed and subverted by the realized project, because the places and situations that Ms. K. discovered and selected do not correspond to the tourist attractions usually advertised in tourist brochures. Rather, it is "the eye outside the box," overlooking spectacular sights, since these inevitably capture the attention of the consumerist gaze. "Commonplaces," said Heinz von Foerster, one of the co-founders of evolutionary epistemology, "have the fatal disadvantage of obscuring the truth by dulling our senses." (Foerster, v., The Future of Perception – Perception of the Future, 1972) In this sense, Hasucha's aesthetic interventions can certainly be interpreted as a challenge to overcome conventional patterns of perception. The viewing gates are directed at incidental, unspectacular situations and objects that are normally barely noticeable and are viewed primarily in terms of their usability and function. These include architectural elements such as a late Gothic pinnacle on the east facade of St. Martin's Church, an oval window on the east side of the monks' house, a wooden gate between two buildings, and a ventilation shaft with louvers. Similarly, objects of public furnishing and decoration are isolated from their surroundings, such as the bench-like stone edging of a flowerbed, a wooden bench with a litter box, and a wooden structure used to enclose urban greenery. When the viewfinder is properly adjusted, these objects appear symbolic, as if cut out from their environment. They optically shift in front of the cut-out, reddish-brown background, creating a fleeting "image" with a clear form-ground relationship. This principle is reminiscent of the transformation of objects on a computer screen: an object is selected, then isolated and transferred to a different context. For a brief moment, the viewing gates withdraw a few square centimeters from public space, which is always also a managed space. These centimeters are then assembled by the user into a singular image-object and subsequently returned to their original environment. Because the viewing gates are easy to operate, anyone can become a user and thus have their own individual aesthetic experiences. In this intervention, the artist assumes the role of prop master, constructing and providing the experimental setup or perceptual situation. Due to the aesthetic experience being limited to a single moment and the limited duration of the public intervention, it takes on the character of a brief event that nevertheless continues to exist afterward in the form of a photographic document, a communicative exchange, or a legend of a place. With this method, Christian Hasucha avoids the risk of the intervention objects becoming museum objects in public space. When the intervention props are transferred to the museum context, they illustrate the reversal of the "readymade" principle employed by Marcel Duchamp: they were conceived as "devices for aesthetic forms of action," implanted in everyday situations, and thus retain the authentic character of everyday objects within the museum context. Susanne Jakob, Stuttgart Quotes placed alongside the text in the original issue: The concept of wandering is inextricably linked to the exploration of psychogeographical effects and the assertion of constructive play, which in every respect contrasts it with the classical concepts of travel and strolling. From: Guy-Ernest Debord, Theory of Wandering The day, as the period between two sleep cycles, constitutes the average duration of wandering. From: Guy-Ernest Debord, Theory of Wandering The situation is simultaneously a unit of behavior in time. It consists of gestures inherent in the very fabric of a moment. From: Guy-Ernest Debord, Preliminary Problems in the Construction of Situations In this situation, the role of the audience—if not passive, then at least present as mere extras—will steadily diminish, while the proportion of those who, while not actors, can be called, in a new sense of the word, "men of life" will increase. From: Guy-Ernest Debord, Report on the Construction of Situations ...the new beauty can only be that of a situation. From: Guy-Ernest Debord, The Bare Lips, 1955 Cf. Project documentation No. 27: S.K. visits Kirchheim