Two of the three tribo-electric generators created for an ISEA exhibition. Several rollers where covered with fur and spun at high speeds which brushed against rollers made of plastic. This produced current from static electricity, which was stored in custom capacitors (the copper and urethane forms), which discharged the current on the brass arms. These machines were part of an installation which explored technologies and their relationship to our bodies. It was a collaboration with artist Annika Newell.
Human_Exchange/Temperature_Differential
Our bodies are the “source” of information for developing technologies, and the fuel which sustains them. Organic materials, (bone) and processes, (breathing), often provide the territories and maps which guide our technological advances. Over time these technological constructions begin to lose any semblance to the fluidity of their organic origins and become encased in institutionalized beliefs. We are hoping to in find ways through the seemingly impermeable membrane enclosing technological assumptions.
Through our collaboration we have developed a work which expands upon these ideas. The installation is composed of two reciprocal systems; one located inside the other. The exterior system uses electromechanical forms to create an exchange between participants breath and the machines breath while the interior system uses electrochemical reaction to create a form through the exchange of mateiral elements.
The exterior system is composed of 12 mechanical breathing devices, (not shown here) whose breath is captured on rectangular steel plates. These devices breath at different rates, and the patterns of their breath on the plates is altered by the presence of the viewers breath.
The interior system (part of which is shown here) is composed of 3 tribo-electric generators which produce high voltage through the contact of 2 diverse materials moving rapidly. The generators are used to control 3 bone “grafting” devices (not shown here) which use variations of 19th century electrochemical processes.
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