Art meets pop cul­tu­re: Mar­gret Ei­cher’s “Battle:Reloaded” at Got­torf Cast­le

The ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Battle:Reloaded” pres­ents the im­pres­si­ve me­dia tapestry by Ber­lin con­cep­tu­al ar­tist Mar­gret Ei­cher at the Mu­se­um of Art and Cul­tu­ral Histo­ry Schloss Got­torf. Ei­cher com­bi­nes mo­tifs, sym­bols and po­ses from film, ad­ver­ti­sing, pop cul­tu­re, fa­shion and gam­ing in her 30-met­re-long Jac­quard wea­ving to crea­te a uni­que col­la­ge wi­th ten sce­nes that mer­ge in­to one an­o­ther. From a fic­tion­al de­pic­tion of the Big Bang to fi­gu­res such as La­dy Ga­ga, the Nin­ja Turt­les, La­ra Croft, Spi­der­man, Bat­man, King Kong and Ju­li­an Assan­ge, a vi­su­al spec­ta­cle un­folds that traces the de­ve­lo­p­ment of hu­ma­ni­ty th­rough to com­pu­ter-ge­ne­ra­ted aug­men­ted rea­li­ty.

Space and time seem to dis­sol­ve in this me­dia-cri­ti­cal and gen­der-con­scious world of images, wi­th su­per­he­roes and su­per­he­ro­i­nes ac­ting out­side con­ven­tio­nal boun­da­ries. The im­po­sing for­mat of the tapestry re­fers to the fa­mous Ba­yeux Tapestry, who­se bor­der quo­tes the Batt­le of Has­tings as a sce­ne and lends the col­la­ge a his­to­ri­cal frame­work. The “me­dia tapestries” com­bi­ne the court­ly ap­pearance of a tapestry wi­th the hy­per-re­al, di­gi­tal­ly in­spi­red con­tent of our time in a fa­sci­na­ting way — and in­vi­te vi­si­tors to re­dis­co­ver tra­di­tio­nal and new vi­su­al lan­guages.