Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch’s work Space, 2004, opens with a view of an empty, square room. This space is entered by a figure that performs a series of actions that seem to examine the internal rules that govern it, and the limits imposed on whoever occupies it and moves through it. The figure enters, takes a couple of somewhat hesitant steps, tilts its body one way and the other, and then unexpectedly leaps onto the wall and stands perpendicular to it. A step in one direction, two steps in another direction, another leap; it seems as if the figure is examining, challenging and fighting the various forces that facilitate or obstruct its movement. The work appears to stretch the limits of Western logic, since the action it depicts does not comply in any way with the familiar laws of gravity. Even though a permanent shadow follows the figure from wall to wall and from one dimension to another, it does not reveal the source of the manipulation upon which this work is based. The combination of different discursive fields – including architecture and psychology, physics and philosophy – within the context of one work creates a sense of simultaneous mental and physical disorientation that raises the question of whether the viewer’s emotional reactions should be compatible with the actions taken by the figure, or whether he should occupy an external position that would neutralize.
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