Deceitful Habits in a Human’s Soul

In the book, Aoife Rosenmeyer writes: The site-specific work Deceitful Habits in a Human’s Soul by Michael Meier & Christoph Franz is a fountain located in the of a new building designed by the architects Gunz & Künzle for the Institute for Banking and Finance of the University of Zurich on Plattenstrasse. The work recreates elements from the Trevi Fountain – parts of Triton and a sea horse – newly cast from the metal of 10-cent coins thrown into the Roman fountain. The pair are embedded in the building's courtyard, with water flowing from the shell, into which Triton blows with inflated cheeks. Rising up from the narrow courtyard, they seem oversized and slightly absurd. But the work is tailor-made in this respect: the available percent-for-art budget defines how many of the Trevi coins can be bought at face value from the Roman Catholic Caritas to be melted down and reshaped: 8400 euros, to be exact, or 344.4 kg.

This publication Deceitful Habits in a Human’s Soul documents the process of working on this art-in-architecture project. It is contextualised by curator and critic Aoife Rosenmeyer and explored in depth by neuroscientist Christian C. Ruff.