The Doll
The jointed doll found in a Berlin garbage container opened up an unexpected space for questions about the body, mechanics, and artistic transformation. While Hans Bellmer staged his doll constructions as projection surfaces for sexual fantasies and surreal obsessions—paradigmatically interpreted as “insatiable dreams of an unsatisfied person” (Spiegel 1966)—the found figure became an instrument of artistic-kinetic research in my context.
The doll did not function as a fetish body, but as a variable medium on which movement studies could be tested and interfaces between film, painting, and sculpture explored. Its modular structure allowed for flexible manipulation, which made it appear simultaneously as a model, an apparatus, and an experimental figure. In this shift from an erotically charged object to an aesthetic-kinetic experimental arrangement, the work marks a break with Bellmer’s tradition and opens up the discourse to a media reflection on body and technology.