Five Boxes, 2009

Description:

Five boxes was made when I wanted to give agency to the artworks themselves. I had been talking about artworks being some sort of forces with their own life for a while and therefore came to the idea to make them move themselves, to show that they actually do things and not just sit there and “be pretty artworks” for us to interpret.

I started looking into motors of different sorts, and decided to use solenoids, that are magnetic hammers that could be controlled using Arduino technology. So I go Fubbi Karlson from TrueNorth to help me build the machinery and prepare the animations.

What happens in the work is that we see 4 actual physical boxes stacked up in a corner. Occasionally we see one of them fly up into the air, as animation, and then land in the shape of another box. And when the flying box lands, we hear a sound, produced by the solenoid, that knock against the box on the landing location.

Five boxes was a title chosen by intuition and play, and it was only years later that I realised that although the boxes were only four on the ground, then the fifth box was the flying one.

More about the work:

Artwork Information:

Title: Five Boxes

Year: 2009

Materials: MDF boxes and laquer paint. Solenoids, electric cables and Arduino motherboard.

Dimensions: 3 × 3 × 2,5 meters

Duration:

Exhibition history:

Holland

Reykjavik Art Museum

Basel Miami

Waterside Projects

NGBK Berlin

Collections:

Reykjavík Art Museum

Categories:

Video Installation

Arduino

Solenoids

Animation

Music & Sound