A collaboration with Sooyeon Kim and Michael Brandes. "Small Stone" is a sculpture, which exists out of a concrete rock, one breadboard, one microcontroller, one chip, one power supply and cables. The rock sits approximately 2 foot away from the breadboard on the floor of the exhibition space. Breadboard and rock a connected to each other with two white cables. The cables run unseen into the bottom of rock. All electronics are unhidden. Initially expectations are high – the exposed electronics as well as the gesture of turning the power supply on and furthermore the documenting video camera, oriented to the work, raise the user’s belief in some sort of unforeseen happening. Since the rock is now supported with electricity, the spectator finds himself waiting for an incident. The extraneousness of the object makes it completely unpredictable what this event could be. This stage of silence endures for about five minutes and is only broken by my interruption in stating the failure of the piece, which underlines the strength of both the audience’s anticipation and its circumspection. To me this stillness and caution can only be read as the first symptom of the uncanny. At the moment when the person realizes the rock is moving, the entire experience changes. The concussions are so subtle that one can almost not see them. Only rarely does this kinetic operation create a faint sound. This stage of aliveness of the rock begins to cause another moment of the uncanny. The rock, which was apparently a dead object, now becomes a living subject... (excerpt from related writing) dimensions: 12‘ x 14‘ x 18‘ |
