Habitat in Control

Photographer and media artist Elke Reinhuber explores the dark side of a tropical paradise in which almost every aspect of life seems to be too good to be true. Living there for more than half a decade, the location came very close to her imagination of Eden. Everything is clean and tidy, people from different ethnicities and cultures live peacefully together in harmony – all compromising to communicate in an acquired language, softly – hardly anyone ever speaks up or expresses a strong opinion. The city-state’s character is shaped by the very far-reaching intervention in the existence of all of its residents. The full habitat is exposed to a constant revision and optimisation – this encroaching regime begins with the handling of the topography. The metropolis is in an ongoing process of terraforming by extending the coastline into the sea, levelling the hills and then compacting the swamps with the overburden; rivers were relocated, lagoons were turned into inland lakes, in short, nature was brought under complete control. This total command feels so self-evident that every aspect of surveillance and punishment – if any of the rules are violated – is understood as part of the social contract. However, looking behind the façade will reveal only what everyone already knows, like on the “Titanic”, the machine deck hides the relevant people in the dark. The artistic research examines how the comfort and fear of total control, self-censorship and constant surveillance may be observed and expressed in independent artistic projects.