Cable Tangle – Energy Consumption in the Home. Kabelsalat – Energiekonsum im Haushalt
Exhibition
13.01.2012 – 15.04.2012
Location: Deutsches Museum, Munich
Convener: Nina Möllers (RCC / Deutsches Museum), Sophie Gerber (TUM), Nina Lorkowski (TUM)
Whether to refrigerate, cook, toast or blow dry –today’s homes offer suitable appliances for almost every conceivable task. The electrification and mechanization of private households since the early 20th century has facilitated many housework chores and fulfilled long-cherished dreams of more comfort and leisure. Growing numbers of appliances and increasingly frequent usage, however, have led to a constantly rising level of private energy consumption. Today, German private households’ share of the annual total energy consumption is as high as that of the industry and the transport sector – despite efficient refrigerators and energy-saving light bulbs.
The temporary exhibition Cable Tangle - Energy Consumption in the Home follows the history of the mechanization of private households from the late 19th century until today and shows its influence on gender roles, lifestyles and environmentalism. The exhibited objects range from curiosities of early electrification such as electrical pans and elegant cigar lighters to classical designs of the 1950s and 60s in razors, sun lamps and food processors and Lifestyle-Gadgets of the modern mass-consumer society such as electrical parmesan graters and pepper mills. Historical advertisements, political writings and media sources put the objects in context and tell fascinating stories about successful, delayed and at times even failed domestic technology and its impact on social, cultural and environmental norms and debates.
There is much to (re)discover: old and new appliances, utilitarian and well-designed, practical and playful. The objects show how the ever-growing domestic ‘machine park’ contributed to a mentality of carefree energy consumption and encourage us to reflect upon our own ideas of household’s little helpers.