Ventricle in the House of Fairy Tales

I’m delighted to say my new kinetic work, Ventricle, made a brief appearance this weekend in The Story So Far, a new exhibition in the House of Fairy Tales, London.

Established by artists Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk, The House of Fairy Tales is a child-centred artist led project which draws on an extensive team of artists, performers, writers, educationalists, designers, musicians, film makers, dreamers and philosophers to create magical, parallel worlds where learning is play and play is directed learning.

Ventricle

This small, red leather handbag, around the age of my own heart, continually moves, contracting and relaxing, entraining perfectly to the heartbeat of the observer. In an era where sounds and music can be beat-matched perfectly to machine rhythms, Ventricle moves at a varying tempo, one that precisely follows a live human heartbeat.

Version 1 of Ventricle was displayed at the Kinetica Art Fair, February 2011, as part of the ArtHertz collective. Version 2 is currently under test. Here, users will directly connect with Ventricle by placing a stethoscope on their chest.

This exhibit is an attempt to show something internal, individualistic and affective, by animating a mass-produced object.

Ventricle in action

Here’s some rough and ready video, captured on my mobile at the Kinetica Art Fair, Februrary 2011 – more luxurious footage to follow. Here, you can also see some fine wearable electronics on the stands behind me – this was created by Rain Ashford. The other exhibit on the ArtHertz stand, by Andrew Back, is just out of shot. It used variations in the frequency of the mains supply to estimate how many people were making tea and drawing power from the National Grid.