Perpetuum Mobile recreates the impression of a real-time echo within a controlled environment; a traveling sound that loses the consistency of its original source, and transforms over space and time. By focusing on this phenomenon, the installation examines endeavors to measure time and contrasts the rigid order in such systems by counterpointing them with the disorder and unpredictability of experience. The apparent structure represented by time-measuring devices is falsified and challenged by introducing the effects of the very chaos they attempt to organize and codify.

Credits

This installation was exhibited at the Bacchus Temple, Baalbeck in 2016 supported by Studiocur/art and the Baalbeck International Festival.

Originally commissioned for This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time curated by Angela Harutyunyan and Nat Muller. Tijs Ham, sound engineer.

Part of Global Collaborations, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and the American University of Beirut Art Galleries and Collections

Funded/supported by: AFAC, STEIM, Amodo, Mondriaan Fund

With acknowledgment to: Tijs Ham, Cherine Karam, Kesper Kovitz

www.cynthiazaven.com

::vtol:: (RU)

The center elements of the work are a red glass crystal and a flexible Fresnel lens. The project includes many reworked electronic devices – a CD-ROM, an old scanner, reused electric motors. Multiple moving elements provide a wide variability for rather primitive optical elements. It is accomplished by constant change of focal length between the light source, crystal and lens, as well as by changing the crystal’s tilt angle and mechanical distortion of the lens.

The object works autonomously, by algorithm, with many accidental events tied to feedback, with sensors defining the position of various mechanical elements in relation to the range of their movement. The sound part has up to four voices which depend on the activity of various elements. The sound is also in direct interaction with the actual position of those elements, and basically is voicing the process of movement, brightness of light, and intensity of the piece.

Depending on the amplitude and frequency of the speaker’s sound, the balls bounce on the membrane and jump to a certain height. In each of the seven tubes attached to the cups, an optical sensor is installed, registering the passage of the balls. Depending on how often and in which particular cup (tube) the ball hits, the algorithm of sound generation changes in the second circuit, which executes the generative composition. Also the hits affect the frequency of sound in the primary circuit. Once the ball enters the collector it can be returned to the mechanical dispenser with the help of a robotic “hand”.

In essence, the object represents a complicated feedback machine, where the feedback doesn’t have a direct impact, but uses kinetic and mechanical elements-intermediaries. Those intermediaries are nothing other than random number generators inside a complex and precise system. This results in a constant change of the sound. The system’s attempts to hold itself in equilibrium and continue its work can visually be observed.

For this work the Chinese character 「忐忑」（Figure1) was designed as a pictograph using the words 「上」 （Figure2) for “up” and 「下」（Figure3) for “down” over the word 「心」（Figure4) for “heart” to describe this feeling.

With a 40-channel speaker system, the setting of the speakers looks like a path resembling veins. All 40 speakers play the sound of the artist’s heartbeat. When the speakers start to play one after another they produce a range of various rhythmic and musical compositions. The heartbeat is the most important element in this work; however, it is not easy for the audience to hear, since it was designed as a triggering force rather than an audible element. The low frequency of the heartbeat causes the speakers to vibrate, which then triggers the kinetic installation to produce sounds.