"Langsomt gikk det opp for meg at ild, vann, jorden og luften, de fire elementene dukket opp i alt jeg gjorde. Vinden som setter alt i bevegelse, vannspeilet i likevekt, refleksjonene, og flammen som slikker seg oppover og sverter alt den kommer over. Og jorda. Alt vi kjenner til vokser over og under den. "
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The pictures here are fragments of documentation from the exhibition "Vattnet sinar, Jorden tystnar" ("Water dwindles, Earth falls silent") that was held in the exhibition space Archipelago at Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen. It was presented as an installation were artwork or objects got replaced and developed during four weeks, were I was investigating the four elements poetic and physical characteristics, as sculptural material. Like a sensual laboratory where low-tech methods like capillary force and thermodynamics could generate movement and material changes, traces and expectations.
The candle was originally 110 cm tall, and during the first stage of the exhibition, it was slowly burning down. When the flame hits the seeds on the ground, it burns up with a high flame, in around 1 second. It was working as a performance were people were gathering around the time that the flame would go down, waiting for it to catch fire.
This brass plate above (7 cm x 22 cm) is carefully leveled and covered with water that filles the edges, creating a high surface tention. Above the plate there is a small container with water. The water from the container drippes down on the brassplate now and then, creating a wave that almost makes the surface tention burst.
The container with water has a cotton thread that is leaning out from the edge. The cotton suckes up the water by capillar force, and it drippes controlled down.
During the exhibition the container of water was reused, now dripping down on a small tilting plate. When the drop hit the plate, it tilted into a hanging brasspipe, creating a thin sound.
At a certain time of the day the sunlight hit a small flame from a candle in the installation. The sound in the video is from TASC studio kitchen just next to the exhibition space.
My grandfather lend me a book from end of the 19th century, called "Scientific ways of spending time" or Vetenskapliga tidsfördriv, by Gaston Tissandier. It's filled with simple physical experiments and observations from nature for everyone to use, and the book has been a good companion along the last years of my work.
The last stage of the exhibition was working as a reading corner for this book, and a small candle was lit with a tiny feather coming out from the wall above it, so the hot air would make it move.
