Post­modern Times



Imagineering textile gears, a soft machine...



The kinetic installation Postmodern Times is the result of an experimental attitude in which materials are treated with a sense of wonder. This attitude lead to reveal the dynamic qualities of a semi-finished industrial product. The installation is instinctively yet carefully assembled, using just semi-finished products like steel rods, wooden slats and various cardboard tubes. Postmodern Times creates a bridge between the analogue and the digital, as the movements are digitally controlled and the physical form, which creates a balance between material aspects, physics and size.

As soon as the installation is activated via the wind-up key, a choreography begins in which the gears began to move in a hypnotic way into each other and in completely new translations to each other. The white polyester nap fabric that normally disappears in its field of industrial application as a stabilizer between two layers of a sandwich panel, became a protagonist for the kinetic installation. Each of the 36 wheel axles is attached to the supporting frame just using rubber bands. This flexible and freely mounting gives each wheel space to compensate for flaws in the fabric.

Comissioned by Planet Modulor Berlin.