Airplane in your face

In the beautiful Kesselhaus (Boiler House) of a former Brewery, now the KINDLE - Centre for Contemporary Art, there is a plane hanging in an unnatural position. If this weren't an installation, this plane would face certain destructing. Standing directly under it and facing upwards is therefore a powerful experience.

A loud noise is present in the huge space. It is produced by two giant fans, which make the aircraft slowly spin round. The installation is made by Swiss artist Roman Signer (1938) and called Kitfox Experimental. Is is also the name of this type of aircraft; "an economic airplane you can built yourselve".

This build-your-own-dream venture is exactly like Signers work. He makes strange installations with ordinary objects to do crazy and fun stuff with. Like catapulting stools out of windows, or letting a rocket pull your knitted head off. This artist certainly has the time of his life, whiles producing art.

Taking objects (or attitude for that matter) out of their natural habitat, gives you information about the thing itself. For example about formal qualities you normally take for granted. The plane, which goal normally is to go up into the air, fly around and then go down again, is now hanging there. Still in its natural habitat, it is doing an unnatural thing.

If the plane was in this position in real life, there would be no happy ending to this story. Luckily for us, this strange still life gives us the opportunity to stand right under its nose and invent one.