CONDIOTION(S) (2025)
sound installation
With her installation Condition(s), Tintin Patrone intervenes in the entrance area of the Bucerius Kunst Forum, transforming the central staircase into an idiosyncratic climate zone. A group of mock air conditioners – made of plastic and mounted on the wall – line the path to the exhibition spaces in various sizes. The models are inspired by commercially available air conditioners and appear partly crude and improvised, partly functional.
Condition(s) raises questions about the invisibility of infrastructure, about power and representation, and about temperature as a metaphor for cultural climate. Air conditioners are more than technical objects – they regulate not only air, but also access, atmosphere, and behavior.
In Southern Europe and countries with tropical climates, air conditioners are visible signs of everyday life – often mounted on the exterior of buildings and audible by their quiet hum. In Western exhibition spaces, however, they are part of an invisible architecture of well-being – embedded, insulated, hidden. By removing these devices from their technical context and exposing them as sculptural bodies in the interior, Tintin Patrone exposes layers of institutional control – not only over air and space, but also over perception, taste, and the power of interpretation. The work also addresses the contradictions of cultural climate policy: While art institutions increasingly proclaim sustainability, many of their systems – both energetically and symbolically – remain geared toward cooling, preservation, and exclusion. The air conditioning system becomes a symbol of an ambivalent, self-undermining progress. Between critique and comedy, between minimalism and overheating, Condition(s) calls for a rethinking of the relationship between the environment, technology, and the art world.
In Southern Europe and countries with tropical climates, air conditioners are visible signs of everyday life – often mounted on the exterior of buildings and audible by their quiet hum. In Western exhibition spaces, however, they are part of an invisible architecture of well-being – embedded, insulated, hidden. By removing these devices from their technical context and exposing them as sculptural bodies in the interior, Tintin Patrone exposes layers of institutional control – not only over air and space, but also over perception, taste, and the power of interpretation. The work also addresses the contradictions of cultural climate policy: While art institutions increasingly proclaim sustainability, many of their systems – both energetically and symbolically – remain geared toward cooling, preservation, and exclusion. The air conditioning system becomes a symbol of an ambivalent, self-undermining progress. Between critique and comedy, between minimalism and overheating, Condition(s) calls for a rethinking of the relationship between the environment, technology, and the art world.
pics: Maik Gräf
installation view, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg
