Hella Gerlach: Spektrum

The exhibition Spektrum by Hella Gerlach is the fourth exhibition in the series for fear of continuity problems, which deals with memory and remembrance in a section of the GAK and the poster frames in the outdoor space.

In her works, Hella Gerlach (*1977, lives in Berlin) deals with communication and relationships as an interplay of bodies and technology. The focus is often on touch. What is touched leaves a trace, triggers a reaction and forms a data record that is inscribed in technologies and bodies. The spectrum in which these touches can take place is broad. Using sensors and their extensions, physical touch can bridge large distances as well as different forms of perception between bodies.

Large and small wool objects, which Gerlach has modeled, washed and pulled into shape, hang from rubber ropes in the room. Some of them are equipped with technology, which expands their possibilities of reacting to touch to include trembling movements and vibrations. The communication between the objects themselves and between them and people is non-verbal and inscribes itself as a memory. Inside-out is the name of this series of tactile objects, whose forms are reminiscent of bodies turned inside out.

Hella Gerlach also takes up this movement between inside and outside in a sound work and in the outdoor space. Here she brings the pages of her current publication Kollagen, which are actually inside, onto the wall. Using hands and ears, existing and new book pages, a collection of texts and images on different forms and gestures of touch unfolds on the building envelope. Every touch is a concatenation of sensory perceptions. Vibrations are transmitted and transformed, passed on and channeled through countless materials, bundled, stored and passed on again. Gerlach's works also negotiate tensions between body and technology, between possibility and vulnerability, expansion and loss.