Jardinet mécanique
Amelie-Proulx
Avatar invited artist Amélie Proulx for a research and creation residency in 2012. Her project, Jardinet mécanique, is about ceramic flowers that create a delicate sound composition when clinking together. Amélie Proulx won the 2013 RBC Emerging Artist Award with this project.
The work Jardinet mécanique consists of porcelain flowers made initially from gear shapes. These flowers-like shapes are each mounted on a spring and assembled on a steel plate in a way that suggests that all flowers are interconnected as if they were part of a machine. Each steel plate is also spring- mounted and attached to a long steel structure. A motor with an off-centred shaft is attached under each plate, making the plates vibrate slightly when the motors are on. The motors are triggered at different intervals by a micro-controller. When a motor stops, the off-centred shaft produces a stronger vibration that sometimes causes the porcelain flowers to hit one another and produce a subtle sound.
Porcelain, glaze, steel structure, springs, motors, microcontroller, electronic circuit, 32 x 60 x 18 inches.