The ultimate social distancing tool, aka Mechanical Body Fan by the German conceptual artist Rebecca Horn. Horn has spent the past fifty years exploring the physicality and fragility of the human body, often employing so-called “body extensions” for the purpose. This fan was made to measure and designed so that “one half of the fan rotates in front of my body, the other behind my body”, the artist once explained—a bit like a flying machine prototype. Such sculptural constructions have proved vital to Horn’s “systematic investigation of individual subjectivity”, to quote Tate, drawing attention to “the human need for interaction and control while also pointing to the futility of ambitions to overcome natural limitations”.
