Modular Architecture - Igloo

Studio Orta - 0501.01.jpg
Studio Orta - 0501.02.jpg

Date: 1996
Ref: 0501.1
Materials: Microporous Polyester, diverse textiles, telescopic aluminum structure
Dimensions: 240 x 120 x 210cm
Exhibition history: 1996 Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris; 1999 Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney
Courtesy: Collection of the artist

The aluminium membranes of Modular Architecture, doting many identities, can be detached to reveal individual body-parts symbolised by arm, hood or leg appendages. They form entire suits and the boundaries between body and architecture dissolve. Orta regards them as a multifaceted mechanism, mirroring Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s theories on the mechanization of the body. In the theory of monadology, Leibniz describes the body not as a machine in itself, but as a mechanism made up of many machines, considering organs and body parts as devices in themselves. A model for expression in contemporary aesthetics, the concept of the monad is viewed in terms of folds of space, movement and time, like the interrelatedness of the body and the Modular Architecture sculptures by Lucy Orta. 

Modular Architecture was originally commissioned by La Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, for a 40’ dance performance.