The Abysses of the Scorch­ing Sun

Share this webpage

Add to favorites

In this kinetic install­a­tion, an impos­ing tech­nical object slowly tracks the path of the sun. Using a system of light projec­tion and reflec­tion, it gener­ates moving pris­matic images that seem to replic­ate the fusion of atoms at the sun’s core. Is it a reflec­tion of our collect­ive anxi­ety about an uncer­tain ecolo­gical future that is being shared here? The fragil­ity of our exist­ence in rela­tion to the infin­ite cosmos? Or human­ity’s determ­in­a­tion to survive, even if that means creat­ing arti­fi­cial stars?

The Abysses of the Scorch­ing Sun high­lights the connec­tions between time, infin­ity, climate change, and human­ity’s place in a perpetu­ally shift­ing universe. The perpetuum mobile refers to a hypo­thet­ical system capable of oper­at­ing indef­in­itely without an external energy source. Unlike a sundial – once used to tell time by the shadow cast by a gnomon accord­ing to the sun’s posi­tion – this device, in a space shiel­ded from natural light, directs beams from an arti­fi­cial source toward the sun, regard­less of its posi­tion.

These rays gener­ate colour­ful patterns through mech­an­isms of reflec­tion and diffrac­tion, evolving through­out the day. The pris­matic projec­tions on the walls evoke the eye of a storm – that suspen­ded moment between calm and chaos, teeter­ing on the edge of instabil­ity. While the cycles, accom­pan­ied by a continu­ous sound compos­i­tion, render the sun’s perpetual motion tangible, they also express a fragile balance, unsettled by entropy.

The prom­in­ence of the machine offers a clue: could humans, creat­ors of tech­no­lo­gical devices, be at fault? Is our desire to inter­vene in forces infin­itely greater than ourselves – like the sun – justi­fied? This install­a­tion situ­ates us within the cosmos, confront­ing the trivi­al­ity of our exist­ence and, para­dox­ic­ally, reveal­ing the auda­city of some of our tech­no­lo­gical achieve­ments.