Remote control

Personalizing and customizing the surroundings and objects of our everyday life is a widespread human practice. We pick up devices with our hands in passing, consuming their contents – often, they are the last thing we see before we close our eyes in bed at night. It is a way of creating a connection between the I and the world, a way of making yourself comfortable and claiming originality – being zany, cute or interesting. In Japanese subculture there is a specific term for this practice of excessive personalization. デコデン (Dekoden, or “decorated phones”) describes the over-the-top decoration of mobile phone cases and other maximalist accessorizing. 

In Isabella Fürnkäs’ ongoing series Remote control, the human urge to individualize is hinted by the material contrast of unglazed and air-dried clay with the excessive use of shells, shimmering pearls, mirrored shards of glass or natural, consumable items like lentils, beans and tofu. With their rudimentary, geometric shapes, recessed indentations or button-like decorations and antennas, these handy objects are reminiscent of the trailblazing invention of wireless remote controls. As the first technical device of its kind and the predecessor to the gadgets of our daily contemporary life, the remote gave people the feeling of being in control of the screen by deciding from a distance about the image being broadcast. Lying in your hand like a magic wand, this technical device puts you in a commanding position over your immediate surroundings via an invisible connection by only pushing buttons. But the force of these intelligent prostheses shifts over time, and the dynamic between subject and technology becomes fragile and increasingly ambiguous, alternating on the verge of autonomy and heteronomy. 

In their dysfunctional objecthood, the clay-formed Remote control plays humorously with the illusion of control you feel when you hold something tightly in your hand. A feeling that is only reminiscent in their embellished silhouettes.

- Text by Klara Hülskamp