Vanitas Machine

Installation

This installation features a lighted candle which sits under a glass bell in the center of a laboratory designed to keep the fire alive. In a controlled atmosphere, by limiting the oxygen that the flame consumes to burn, the artist artificially prolongs the lifespan of the object.

Thus, Vanitas Machine expresses the desire for eternal life, it is an allegory of the efforts one makes in order to prolong existence. But is death inevitable? Here, Verena Friedrich recalls one of the first theories of slowing aging: the rate-of-living. This claims that the faster an organism’s metabolism, the shorter its lifespan. By slowing it down as much as possible, it would therefore be possible to delay death.

In this representation proceeding by analogy, the candle and the glass bell refer to recurring symbols of vanities which evoke death, the passage of time, the emptiness of passions and the futility of human activities. Through the use of these codes, the work portrays the transient nature of existence and suggests the tension that links it with this desire to be kept alive at all costs.