Deluge development

A significant portion of this project was devoted to testing materials and techniques that could reliably induce coiling instabilities. These trials were shaped by a set of practical constraints: length scale, processing time, cost, durability, reproducibility, and production. At the same time, the work was guided by more discursive concerns, including the visual language of the material, its historical associations, and the kinds of forms or behaviors it could be made to suggest.

Eva Hesse (c. 1960s), served as a critical source of inspiration for the work.

A pile of material studies showing coaxial-extruded ropes, and prefabricated silicone foam rods attached to organza fabric.

An early prototype of a coaxial extruder, where rope is encapsulated inside of a layer of silicone gel. The rope makes coils with a large radius. The silicone cures, locking overlapping coils together to form a macroscale net-like textile.

Exploring more ways join coils of elastic rods together. Here: embedding them in a puddle of silicone.

Trials with wax

Drawn to the different material vocabulary and sheer challenge, we spent some time trying to elicit coiling instabilities in wax. Wax is not viscous in the ordinary fluid-dynamical sense, but it carries a historical and sensory association with viscosity: a capacity to soften, yield, receive pressure, and be reshaped. From Leonardo’s time, wax belonged to a world of modeling rather than drawing, where form was not only projected onto a surface but worked through the mutable substance of the material itself.

This plasticity gives wax its strange liveliness. It holds a shape, but never seems fully fixed. It can appear brittle, then quickly become soft and compliant with heat or touch. This instability helps explain why wax sculptures can be so alluring: they do not simply imitate flesh visually, but share with flesh a certain susceptibility to deformation. In this sense, wax suggests a mode of making in which form is no longer governed only by disegno, or the external idea imposed by the artist, but by the intrinsic in-between-ness of the material.

We added fumed silica to various waxes (beeswax, paraffin, and soy), forming a yield-stress gel. Shaving it down, we intended to extrude it using a pellet extruder. This ultimately did not work! The wax flakes were too soft and sticky, causing jamming before the material could reach the auger.

A block of solid beeswax gel before ‘pelletizing’, i.e. cheese-grating.

Beeswax gel pellets, re-melted and extruded from a syringe onto cardboard. In concept it works. In practice, the material was too fragile and the process too cumbersome for large-scale work.

… and more! To be added later.

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