Manual

2006

kinetic installation

dimensions: 6m circumfrence x 1m high

materials: aluminum stock, DC motors, leadscrew, mechanical elements, broom, hardware, steel, custom electronics, battery, sand.

Our world is rife with systems: systems for ordering and remembering, systems for creating and destroying, systems for communication, transportation, entertainment, devotion... it goes on and on. Undeniably, the greatest devisor of systems is Nature, itself, forever finding new ways of creating and replicating order where there was none before.

     — Norman T. White (from exhibition text for Manual, Koffler Centre for the Arts, Toronto, Canada, 2006)

Over the course of half a day, an efficiently futile machine meticulously deposits a 6 meter spiral of dust on the floor. Upon completion of this task, it commences sweeping, methodically effacing the helical drawing it has just produced. After another half-day, only traces of dust remain and the system resets... with Manual continuously creating and destroying it's spiral figure in an endless cycle.

This work has been shown as part of the Lazymode series. In this solar powered version, the cycles of dust deposition and sweeping take several days, according to weather conditions.

texts

related