An Uncomfortable Examination

What is the relationship between anonymous objects and intimacy? This question was the starting point for Naked Couch, a doctor’s examining table held together only by belts. Tina Roeder, 30, not only tries to find links between the two concepts in her work, she also challenges viewers to use their eyes as they were meant to be used: for really looking – that is, for questioning the image perceived.

As a graduation project for her industrial design course at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Roeder investigated the relationship between anonymous objects and intimacy. “You soon discover that a safety pin once associated with Marilyn Monroe is no longer an anonymous object; people will pay thousands of euros for that pin at auction. But objects that everyone uses daily, like watchbands, belts and key rings, can also be very intimate."

Roeder assembled personal objects in a manicure case. “Boxes like that are very anonymous too; they often contain the same standard set of objects, and at the same time they’re very personal." All the objects, including the box, are made of flesh-coloured leather.

A box of knives

Roeder holds a watchband against her wrist. “The skin colour gives it an extra layer of meaning," she says. “It looks like a scar, or a plaster, or the imprint on your skin after you undo your belt. It reminds me of the 2002 film Secretary, which was a sensitive comedy about heavy topics like masochism and self-mutilation. Why do people do things like that? Are they really hurting themselves because they can’t feel anything anymore and are trying to experience something real? The film’s main character, a woman, has a private box; at first you think it’s a makeup case. But then it turns out to be full of sharp objects like knives and needles, which she uses to cut herself."

This clash between the innocent items you’d expect to find in a private box and the harsh reality makes you look at the objects in a different way.

“I tried to achieve the same effect with Naked Couch," Roeder says. “An examining table is a place where the patient is very vulnerable. I googled it and found out that this archetypal table exists in every country. I also ran across a psychiatric table, with belts for strapping the patient down. That brought me back round to my own belts in the manicure box. I’d come full circle." Roeder bought a secondhand table, took it apart down to the tiniest piece, and rebuilt it in the same shape using belts. Its title refers to the Freudian sofa on which people reveal their most intimate secrets."

Visual anaesthesia

‘Visual anaesthesia’ is a central theme in much of Roeder’s work. “Because really," she says, “how often do we really look at things properly? We not only let ourselves be made fools of, because in the Big Brother era the relationship between reality and fiction has got totally confused -– but we've also become lazy. Everything has already been pre-experienced for us: we can even see on TV how we’re supposed to have sex. Where’s the intimacy?" Roeder seeks to make us see objects with new eyes, to find our own way of looking.

The thoroughness evident in Roeder’s way of working has also marked her life so far. She studied in England, Germany and the Netherlands and now works in Antwerp, Belgium. “I want to keep surprising myself," she says. “Yes – maybe in order to avoid anaesthesia." She also immerses herself in her theme by reading works on visual philosophy by Baudrillard (who asserts that we live in a simulation) and Merlau-Ponty (who urges a revaluation of perception so as not to lose touch with concrete reality). “I’d like to read more Proust, too," Roeder says. “Seeing with new eyes is a central theme in his work. I bought the seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu, and it’s been sitting here for months, but I just don’t have the time. Ironically enough, time is its subject." A theme for her future work, perhaps.