The house, particularly in its traditional form, embodies security. It offers a shielded living environment which protects us not only from nature’s hostile moods but also from dangers and disturbances of the societal kind. This protection does, however, depend on other outside circumstances. Gabriele Obermaier’s PROXY HOUSE refers directly to this dependency with its implications of the danger of flooding. In the meantime, this danger has helped to raise the awareness of environmental risks by giving it a strong media presence in this country. In the city of Dorfen forethought has taken the form of a catchment pond for rising water levels so that in an emergency only this small lake – and with it the PROXY HOUSE - will be flooded. Thus, one could regard Obermaier’s steel object as a sign from which one can interpret the functioning of a societal security mechanism.

However, here we are not dealing with a mere measuring instrument but with an aesthetic interpretation which condenses multifarious references into one image. There are not only mythical and cultural ideas coming into play here, but the question is also posed as to the rule governing who or what is to be sacrificed in an emergency. What, in our society, is worthy of protection and what is not is obviously subject to certain boundaries which make the determination between important and less-important groups, regions, commodities or persons.

Therefore the PROXY HOUSE could “represent” in symbolic form those environments which are excluded from the prosperity of the privileged. And, as in watching television, those more fortunate may observe from a safe vantage point the “sinking” of the others who are being sacrificed by proxy. Nevertheless, no-one is exempt from the uncertainty of what, and under what circumstances, belongs to the community of the protected and what does not; no-one, not even the television viewers. Ultimately, belonging is dependent on a way of life that demands constant discipline and control. One can project the concomitant problems onto an imaginary outside in order not to see one’s own contradictions, but an indissoluble residue will remain inside and make mischief.

In correlation with this, in fairytales and horror films, the house is often portrayed as a sinister place. And this might have something to do with the fact that Obermaier’s house is made of Corten steel but has been built on a distorted ground plan. This becomes noticeable when one has walked along the shore of the lake and around the house for some time. If on one side it appears broad and massive, shortly after the effect is narrow and fragile. The impression that something is not quite right with this house enters the mind only subliminally; but is this not exactly the same case in science fiction when, in order to confuse, the heroes are confronted with illusions created by invisible creatures? This analogue irritation created by Obermaier is complemented by the permanent water current which flows through the house like a spring. This is a further surreal image-element which reminds one of the repressed wish for an opening of those boundaries which create pressure (as though from a foreign power) in our domestic inner life.

By the time one has made up one’s mind to accept this point of view, the principle of security and its significance has been curtailed. And, in the measure in which thoughts are guided back to the viewers themselves and their lifelong dreams, the steel house has the appearance of an un-homelike, sinister shell which has already abandoned its inhabitants.

Michael Hauffen/ Translation: Greta Dunn