In the context of Now I Lay me Down To Eat, an exhibition at an abandoned campsite surrounded by farmland and meadows full of cows, Kathrin Schlegel created an installation about society’s fascination with new technologies, classifying sustainability as a Zeitgeist phenomenon. In the middle of the ‘pristine nature’ a Tesla Roadster rotates on a platform powered by solar energy, similar to cars at an automobile convention, seemingly floating above the forest ground. The Tesla Roadster is advertised as the most efficient electric car to date, minimising environmental damage to the extreme. The sports car version in the installation, capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km / h in a mere 3.5 seconds, becomes the ultimate icon of sustainability. Its placement amongst the greenery of the countryside winks at our ambivalent fascination with new sustainable technologies, our desire for luxury, status and grandeur, and the fashionable desire for the original and the natural, however artificial it may turn out to be.
The Illusionist Keeps the Edition Limited