The Factory
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year: 1995, restored and revised in 2007
technique: robotic installation
measurements: H.180 x B.130 x D.150 cm.
materials: miscellaneous materials, electronics, oil, water, beeswax
collection: FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France
The Factory is an installation that is conceived for IAGO Gallery. This conceptual gallery excists in the form of a model that has to be build by the artists according to a building plan with instructions. The spatial layout of IAGO is derived form a small apartment with balcony. Because of its scale and structure IAGO can be easily dismantled and function as a touring exhibition space. The only constraint for the artist is to obey the reduction of scale. IAGO is a project of David Reynaud and Grazia Quaroni.
The Factory is set up as a cyclical process: continuously shapes will be generated, documented, presented and degenerated. The viewer can look from the outside into the various rooms of the model and see what happens inside. He watches the cycle of beeswax, from which he percieves one phase in each room: an amount of melted wax coagulates by pouring it into cold water, the shape dries by ventilation, the shape is documented on video, the shape is presented to the viewers, the shape becomes fluid again by melting. This cycle repeats itself in the same way, but each time the formation of the material will be different.
The gallery consists of four spaces: three rooms and a balcony. All the spaces are connected through windows and doors. In each of the rooms another stage of the cyclic proces takes place. In the transformation room a robot arm takes an amount of fluid wax out of the melting pot and pours this into a bassin with cold water. When completely solid, the shape is scooped onto a conveyor belt that brings it to the next area: the preparation room. Here the shape is placed in between three ventilators to dry. When dry, the shape continues its way through the factory and arrives in the documentation room. In the documentation studio it is recorded on video tape while it passes the camera. Subsequently the shape is moving to the balcony, where the shape is presented to the public. It can be observed in detail here, before it moves towards the melting pot inside the transformation room. Finally the shape disappears in the melting pot and becomes fluid again.
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