Duration: 3’57”
The sculpture ‘The Ice-Cold Man’ is a virtual presentation of a concept in which a both technological and natural process leads to a change of form in the work of art.
The selected technique can be compared to the one we find in a fridge or a freezer. The difference: the heat is not taken from the environment, but from an abstract figure, consisting of a copper tube. The man becomes ‘ice-cold’.
The natural process is evident. The umbrella sprays or atomizes a small quantity of water over the man. Touching the cold tubes, the water turns into ice, and the man starts growing bigger.
We quite literally see a man becoming ice-cold. Figuratively speaking, he is a person without emotion or empathy. The working title of the sculpture was ‘The ice-cold man opens his umbrella’, referring tot he Flemish expression ‘he opens his umbrella’, said of a person who shirks his responsibility. He looks for excuses, the problems are not his but someone else’s.
By ‘finding cover’, one automatically creates a thin layer of protection. Compare it to the clouding of blossoms on a cold night. The thin layer of ice protects against frost. In a cold world, we become increasingly colder, more insensitive; nothing can break through the layer of ice. Freezing to death does not hurt, so they say.