After an appliance has been unpacked, the packaging is usually thrown away. But packaging forms, uniquely created to protect the product, are often complex and interesting in shape and can be easily adapted to protect parts of the body. Kirps has borrowed those shapes and removed them from their familiar contexts to create a new visual language, presenting them as a functional product under the fictitious brand name protekt. These real objects with imaginary functions—with names like Turbomatik 1600, Duotronic 440, and Konsecuent 64—represent a solution for anxious times, primary armor against all kinds of aggression, and a response to daily fears and worries.
Gallery label from Contemporary Galleries: 1980-Now, November 17, 2011-February 17, 2014.