developed three parameters which describe your work: the expansion of the concept of material, the expansion of the concept of form, and instructions. Once this has been grasped – and you’ve already understood this for about twenty years – we can see how sculpture is developing.
In Battle Angel we find ourselves in a bamboo
forest represented by measuring tapes. And in Crazy Jane we see the
paper in a geometrical and a biological shape.MW:In 1993, I observed a young woman in
London sitting on some steps with a cigarette
lighter and a paper napkin. She used the napkin
to make a paper object and then burned off
the corners. This was an object whose function
could not be determined with the best will in
the world. It had an emotional dimension; it
was an obsessive object. It was at this moment
that this dimension of an obsessive, emotional
object became clearly obvious to me for the
first time. I understood what it actually means
for our life to realise that sculpture happens
every day with our own hands wherever we
tackle something and keep doing so.This bamboo forest is in actual fact made
up of transformed measuring tapes. Playingwith measuring tapes in this way I find fascinating because for almost all of us it’s a small piece of childhood history or part of our life in general. Everyone who has at some time measured something has wrestled with the phenomenon that the measuring tape suddenly bends and folds back at some point. And what always amazes me is that no one has yet thought of setting up these measuring tapes, even though almost everybody has held them at some time or other. Like with everything else, we are talking about a very clear, precise movement – and when you touch and use this measuring tape in accordance with the function, you get exactly what I’m showing here.
I had already made Hand-Roll-Objekte (‘Hand-roll objects’) in small models which
could be constantly moved in a circular motion
in your hand. In this case, the objects are
more sensory. Any form of movement can be
carried out by hand. Moreover, they lead to
other objects I made, such as the Handmates,
which were on show at documenta X in 1997.The idea behind them was that something had
been brought together within a single item
that the European and the Asian principle had
in common, such as the palm-pleaser.PW:That can be used well to demonstrate an
extension of the concept of culture. Like with
those cuboids there, someone has a shape
in mind – and manual work and an action are
needed to fashion it. If a piece of wood, iron
or marble has been worked by hand, 
