THREE STUDIES ON NATURAL PRINCIPALS AND FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF NATURE
VIDEO INSTALLATION
Open Gallery Space, 355a, Bowery, Manhattan. NY
The Ancient Greeks believed that all things are made of the four states of matter: Earth, water, air, and fire. Couto brings together objects and three of four videos based on each of these estates. The installation is one outcome of a year project that remains in motion: The investigation of the natural principles and fundamental forces of nature.
Água (Water) is a study on the principle of entropy. The film proposes a return to the formless state of the body. The viewer confronts strong entropic elements. Organic and inorganic nature seems to move towards an orderly balance, yet, by the laws of physics, especially the First Law of Thermodynamics, which refers to the conservation of energy, all things in the universe tend to go from order to disorder. In work, such transformation is a cyclical movement of life and death.
Gravitation could be thought of like a downward pulling force, but Couto is more concerned with it as a pulling together between two bodies. The environment and the body thought of as an assemblage, become a place of exploration of a new unity.
In Conservation of Energy, the body (matter) is questioned as potential energy when challenged by minimal-almost absent motion, an extended period of exposition to high heat and steam, and the effort to hold a bull's heart in the hands.
Videos
When shown together: 3m 15s. Loop. 2014-2015
Conceptualized and Produced by Simone Couto
Edited by Marcos Kuzka Cunha, Marianna Olinger and Simone Couto
Sound Design by Marcos Kuzka Cunha
1.
Entropy
A measure of disorder
The change in the entropy of a system is
The same for any process that goes from
A given initial state to a given final state
(Whether the process irreversible
Or reversible)
Water
The body in water
Dissolution
2.
Gravitation
Natural phenomenon by which
All physical bodies attract each other
The cause of the formation, shaping
And trajectory of non-visible bodies
(Call it the inevitable orbit
And their pathos)
The fall
Acceptance of weak forces
Disambiguation
3.
Conservation of Energy
Can be neither created nor be destroyed. Yet it can change form
Total energy of an isolated system
Remains constant and conserved over time
(The body holds an object
The reptile is trapped in a glass bowl)
Heat isn’t a property of a system
But is instead a property of processes that transfer energy
Mechanical energy propagated by a material's oscillations
Deformation of a material (or its container)
Exhibits a restorative force coming from
Holding your heart in my hands
The motion is
Potential energy
Evaporation
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