(after Montreal) during Montreal PART TROIS

Water receptacle, Gregory Beck Rubin, November 2007

Thanks to the TML, I got access to the Metal workshops at the EV building. I got proper instruction on how to bend copper tube (using this coil that looks like a door stop) and also did some soldering for one of the new wands. I decided to try to different wands - one which exited the lid and extended away from the tank, above the heads of observers towards the wall, and a second which was a closed circuit, linked up to the two remaining lid manifolds. Along the path of this circuit, the tube would bifurcate, and a a slimmer tube would emerge, extend outwards and bifurcate again, and so forth. I was interested to explore the structure of the wands as branches and roots.

The new wand shapes and their position in the space directly affected the observer;s awareness of the machine in the space. The coiling forms I was making could be used to draw an observer onto a vector aligning sight, steam and light. These coils were like kaleidescope tubes, and inside the tubes were pierced at overlapping lengths to build up the intensity of steam for the observers.



Light tests & Steam tests, Gregory Beck Rubin & Daniel McGibbon, November 2007

I fired up the machine after I got my new wands reconnected to the Still tank. Some interesting discoveries were made. First, the wands vibrated when steam started to run through their lengths. I could adjust the vibration by playing with the valves on the lid. Second, it took some time before the steam would pour through all the holes I had inserted along the various wands. This was a nice effect, watching the gradual build up of steam from all the tubes. Third, the spitting of water droplets overwhelmed the polyethylene cone receptacles I hung from spring coils under the tubes where there was a hole, to capture the condensing vapour. There was still water falling on the floor (It was interesting, though, to observe the slight deformation of the cones as it filled up with water, and that weight in turn stretched the springs and the copper wands).



Steam Wands, Daniel McGibbon, November 2007



Corrosive Subliming, Gregory Beck Rubin and Daniel McGibbon, November 2007

Late late Thursday JS and I came up with these mylar platforms for catching the water droplets. The platforms also "caught" the sound of the water droplets impacting the surface. By placing a contact microphone under the platform, the noise of the water droplets were recorded by the sound system and played with as output data. This was a great discovery. Using Max MSP, the water droplets beats were turned into signals to activate Evan Marnoch's typewriter, located on the other side of the BB. We also manipulated the sound of the water droplets and played them out of a speaker nearby the most active steam wand, near the wall. Having incorporated sound and water into the du Still's actions, I was demonstrating more complexity in the machine. I was also getting a chance to play with all the components of the machine, and not just the steam output. This is important because it addresses the "cyclical" aspect of the machine as an autopoetic system. (I still need to continue developing its "circuit" but in the mean time, the installation in Montreal broadened the potential of the project: identifying hinge points in the cycle of water to steam to water, etc...).



Golden Shower, detail of MaxMSP file, Gregory Beck Rubin, November 2007