Oil Installation and Magnet Installation

This exhibition displayed a pair of interrelated installation works. On the floor of the tall exhibition room stood two identical square steel basins, each filled to the brim with waste oil.

Oil Installation, 2003

Aluminium, oil, stainless steel, oil pump
20 x 250 x 250 cm

The oil contained in the first basin was transported to the ceiling through a pipe by means of a pump. From there, it flowed back into the basin in an even stream. Within the whitewashed space of the gallery, this continuously flowing stream of shiny black oil had the effect of a freestanding graphic line. Only the colour changes and the build up of bubbles on the surface of the stream betrayed the fact that the oil was in constant motion.

Magnet Installation, 2003

Oil, steel plates, stainless steel weights, stainless steel wire, permanent magnets, electronic magnets, control unit, transformer
20 x 250 x 250 cm

Above the second basin, steel weights were suspended from the ceiling by means of steel cables. These weights acted like mutually repelling pendulums, moving chaotically above the mirror-like surface of the oil. This seemingly impossible perpetual motion was an effect of the permanent magnets and electromagnets attached to the undersides of the weights, just below the surface of the oil. These magnets made it impossible for the weights to remain in the locations towards which the force of gravity would have normally propelled them.