Unplugged Series, Basel

Incorporating media like sculpture, installation, video, and performance, Eric Hattan’s practice is based on everyday life within the context of the habitualised architectural and social codes of public space. The artist uses mundane objects and raw materials like boxes, clothes, and furniture by turning them upside-down or inside-out in his video works, installations, and interventions. Seeking ways of breaking the order of things as well as ways of challenging bodily and perceptual limits, Hattan creates sculptural constructions and unexpected situations.
“Unplugged” is an ongoing series of video works that Eric Hattan has been producing since the mid-1990s. In this series, he recorded his own performance of turning packages he found in cities he passed through inside out. Performed in hotel rooms, the videos present a close-up of the artist’s hands gently turning a package inside out, as well as the sound of his transformation of the packages. This gesture, which exchanges the interior and the exterior of everyday, simple objects, also allows the artist to present an archive of consumption habits and visual design elements in different cities. “Istanbul”, the most recent piece of the series, was produced by the artist for the exhibition “What Time Is It?” (2019) at Arter and has been added to the Arter Collection.

Video stills