SITUATION #60

In her photographic works, the young German photographer Luise Marchand explores things that seem insignificant or offbeat at first glance. Her photo series Soft Reset presents the body as a self-optimizing machine that can be recharged or “gently recalibrated”. The body becomes a software that can be programmed by means of commercial products and according to the needs of an individual or society, while the images circulating in advertising and social media propagate and evoke cyborg-like physical ideals and fantasies. Prosthetics and devices constrain individual body parts; they protect, provide security, stimulate, and ward off. The merging of technology with the everday offers implicit messages that suggest means of overcoming the physical imperfections of the human body.