"The view into one’s own ears is a sensation, the significance of which is only immediately clear in very few situations indeed. The question of meaning is always dependent upon the social situation. And should it turn own that this is one of the important steps on the path to understanding or is simply a natural basic need of society to have a look into one’s own ears or to report on this, than this apparatus would suddenly become extremely valuable for society. Currently, this function of Oliver Czarnetta’s apparatus is perfect with regard to technology and handicraft. I can testify as a witness that I have in fact looked into my own ears with the help of this box. Nevertheless, a consensus in society as to whether this is relevant or not has yet to be reached. But this apparatus is more likely to master this promised function on a technical level than a 'perpetuum mobile' is to master its own function. Out of this discrepancy between the attained function, on the one hand, and the not (yet) recognised benefit, on the other hand, a semantic field arises, within which art examines its own self-conception as part of a catalogue of questions that has been brought up time and again since the beginning of Modernity. An object that has no social value is generally described as garbage. But the question, which such an object raises about the perception of individual members of a society, does indeed have great relevance. And is looking into one’s own ears really all that useless? If one sees novelties and curiosities, i.e. the new and the unusual, as attention grabbers, than the view into one’s own ear certainly fits into this category. Seeing with only the left eye by closing the right one also leads to a new and unexpected perception of one’s own body. One can even look into one’s own nose with the help of these boxes from the ‘Single-Interieur” series. And when the concrete walls and the viewing window make the box seem like a house, what we are actually dealing with here is a kind of housing with a built-in system of mirrors, into which one looks from the outside – a theatre of the body." (Joachim Geil)