Isabella Andrea Pacher: The Fragility of Technology, Encased in Latex
Isabella Andrea Pacher dissects the material traces of technology, transforming obsolete devices into sculptural artifacts of the digital age. Read more about the Artist on Catapult - Artists now
Isabella Andrea Pacher Spotlight: The touch of technology, preserved in amber-like latex. A poetic exploration of memory and function.
Isabella Andrea Pacher (*1998, Linz) is a Vienna-based artist whose practice transcends the conventional limits of photography, entering the realm of sculptural installations and conceptual material studies.
A student at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, her work dissects the material and metaphysical residues of technology, questioning the cultural, functional, and ephemeral life cycles of objects we interact with daily.
A screen is only a screen as long as it serves its function. Once broken, it becomes an object, a relic, a memory.
At the core of Pacher’s work is a forensic yet poetic examination of technological devices—laptops, smartphones, cameras—disassembled and cast in latex, their internal structures preserved like archaeological imprints of the digital age.
Her series Dort (2023), a three-part installation exhibited at Fotogalerie Wien, captures these technological remnants in a ghostly amber-hued materiality.
The silicone-like casts, marked by the absence of function, challenge the viewer to reconsider the object beyond its utilitarian purpose.
Once stripped of its capacity to display images or transmit sound, what does a screen become? Is a camera without a lens merely an empty shell, or does it carry an imprint of its history?
Pacher’s fascination with touch, surface, and decay extends beyond latex into photographic experiments that collapse the medium’s inherent realism.
In works like Skiagraph (2022) and 2999.mov (2021), she manipulates light-sensitive materials to capture ephemeral, abstract traces—gestures of a technological unconscious.
Her use of materials like Baryta paper, photochemical treatments, and thermographic prints reflects a deep engagement with the technical processes behind image-making, revealing the hidden structures that shape our visual consumption.
With an approach that merges scientific observation with poetic fragmentation, Pacher constructs immersive installations that function as post-digital relics—artifacts of an era in which screens mediate every aspect of human experience.
Her work stands as both a lamentation for the obsolescence of technology and a meditation on the fragile, almost corporeal relationship we share with our devices.
🔍 Want to see more of Isabella Andrea Pacher’s thought-provoking work? Follow her journey on Instagram and dive into the materiality of technology!
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