A womblike inhabitable object designed for emotional release. A catharsis activator for the nomadic lifestyle. A pleasure machine. A concupiscent urban hideaway. Haus-Rucker-Co, a Vienna-based group of artists and architects, presented Gelbes Hertz –yellow heart- in 1968. The idea was that a concentrated spatial experience could lead to changes in consciousness. Gelbes Hertz was one of the group’s first mind-expanding experiments. Melding the formal language of space-age technology with psychedelic and futuristic formal codes, Gelbes Hertz was designed as a mini-habitat for relaxation, a mini-pleasure dome. Through a lock made of three yellow air rings, one arrived at a transparent plastic mattress offering just enough space for two people. The mattress was in a spherical capsule approximately 3 meters (9.8 ft.) in diameter. The capsule was supported by a metal frame and raised from the ground. Lying there, one could perceive that the air-filled pillows –double-layered chambers of translucent PVC- whose swelling sides almost touched the inhabitants, slowly moved. The effect was that the surrounding space expanded until it formed a translucent sphere and, then, contracted again, mimicking the systolic-diastolic rhythm of the heart. Large dots arranged in a grid on the outer and inner surfaces of the air-shells changed in rhythmic waves from milky patches to a clear pattern. The space pulsated at extended intervals. The object’s behavior was a metaphor for sexuality: both the spherical form of the capsule and the pleasure-seeking experience of its inhabitants were achieved through the principle of pumping.
