in collaboration with Dr. Peter Walters and Jeremy Lee
2009

1 Minute film, web quality
Animation by Jeremy Lee

Engine was created for VoxBox. What interested us most when hearing the sound recording and likening it to an engine was this process of perceiving the audio to be a machine with mechanical attributes. This idea of translating the sound of a physical movement into a visual and three-dimensional form became interesting because although we each interpreted the sound as some kind of engine, its visual appearance eluded us and became abstract.  This abstraction of form but recognition of movement was how we understood the sound and so how we in turn began to create the work.

Our submission for VoxBox also employs computer animation and rapid prototyping. Our artwork Engine centres on mechanical technology, however we have animated the moving parts of a fictional engine - a crank, reciprocating piston, and rotating cams. The engine is surrounded by a seemingly rubbery membrane, causing its appearance and movement to become abstract yet still visible. As the working parts of the engine push against the inside surface of the elastic envelope, its shape stretches and distorts.

The physical translation of the artwork comprises four sculptural pieces created by 3D printing, using data from the animation. These describe the external shape of the membrane surrounding the engine, capturing instances of its movement. This abstraction in both 2D and 3D seemed important to the process of the artwork, representing the movement and creating a visual and physical material that offers up some kind of explanation of the “immaterial” sound.

3D printing by the Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England, Bristol
Animation
ZCorp Powder-Binder 3D Prints