Saturday, October 17, 2009

leaf blower



These are some pictures from the latest show here in Montreal's Art Pop; a part of Pop Montreal music festival.

I have been trying to harmonize my building practice with my artwork lately so when curators Kit Malo & Julien Ceccaldi first approached me about the show my response was to work in relation to what the show needed. I proposed I work with them and the artists to plan, layout and divide for the exhibition. The purpose was to resolve spacial and acoustic issues with the time line/ budget at the same time to use sculptural materials that could be reused when the show was done.

It went so smoothly I thought it necessary to plan another semi-functional sculpture in the form of work tables and seating. However the need was there to make it movable so I set out to resolve a longstanding peeve of mine: How to build large mobile furniture without wheels.

No wheels since the furniture moves when you don't want it to just as much as when you do.... unless you build in costly and laborious mechanisms to lock or retract them.

So I tried out the old hover trick and I am satisfied that it has not yet run out of uses. Each bench has an electric leaf blower or a vacuum machine blower and a rubber gasket and can float several people plus it's own weight.

Thanks to Jhave Johnson for the video.




Here are some images of the divisions we made.