Material Universe
In collaboration with Geoff Sobelle
2014
Two-channel video composition: 5:05minutes, looped
Hand-blown glass bubbles with video screen embedded in white acrylic
20 x 15 x 14 in. (51 x 38 x 35 cm)

To whom does the air belong to? Do you consider a dog to be property? Do you know what you need? In Material Universe, Loher teams up with performance artist Geoff Sobelle to explore our relationship to "things." Loher has reimagined Sobelle's full length performance work "The Object Lesson" as a fragmented meditation on property, possession and packaging. Sobelle's performance plays with the familiar/unfamiliar nature of ordinary objects as he unpacks cardboard boxes in a storage facility. Loher responds by casting the performance as an object in and of itself. Theater is generally experienced as a time-based art: here one moment, gone the next... In Material Universe, the moment is held; but held in a thin glass bubble - which feels as transient as the moment itself, as fragile as our attachment to it. Loher&Sobelle have added deconstructed text from Swiss playwright Max Frisch's "Fragebogen" (Questionnaire) in this playful meditation on time, permanence and possession.

1.Can you remember how old you were when you first realized that something belonged to you? Or didn't belong to you?

2. What is property?
a. Something you bought?
b. Something you inherited?
c. Something you made?

3. To whom does the air belong to?

4. Do you consider money itself "property," or do you have to buy something in order to consider yourself an "owner?"

5. How do you explain that you feel like more of an owner the more you think people envy something of yours? 6. Do you know what you need?

7. Do you consider a dog to be property?

8. Do you like fences?

9. Against what are you not insured?

10. Why do you enjoy giving?

11. How much do you need not to feel fear?

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