Closed Circuit presents a banal utilitarian object whose function has been permanently suspended. The bath plug and its attachment are cast in epoxy resin, rendering any practical operation impossible. What remains visible is the gesture of use: a chain that suggests handling, pulling, activation.
Both ends of the system are immobilized. The apparent continuity offered by the chain conceals a closed loop in which action circulates without consequence.
The work draws on Martin Heidegger’s distinction between Zuhandenheit (readiness-to-hand) and Vorhandenheit (presence-at-hand). An object that would normally withdraw into use is here forced into visibility precisely through the loss of its function. Stripped of its capacity to act, the object no longer operates within a world of practice, but appears as a thing isolated from its purpose.
Rather than depicting obstruction, Closed Circuit stages the persistence of functional form after functionality has vanished. Agency survives only as appearance. The viewer is confronted with a system that still looks ready, while silently refusing all use.