MOVEMENT 1

-INK ON PAPER, PIANO WIRE, HAND-MADE PULLEYS, BRASS, NYLON BEARINGS, RUBBER CORD AND ELECTRONICS, 243 CM X 213 CM X 121 CM (VARIABLE).


A gallery filled with small paper discs – each about the diameter of a teacup, coloured black on one side and white on the other – rotate mechanically on long thin rods in Fontanive’s room sized installation, Movement #1. The rods are suspended from steel wires attached to the ceiling by slender metal plates and a hollow brass circle. this elegant hardware threads the wires through a complicated, interconnected pulley system which regulates movement and keeps the discs’ rotational speed in sync. the flat little circles animate the space with seemingly weightless patterns of motion, like vastly magnified atoms bouncing in space. their movement is constant and synchronized; sometimes the whole group slows down or speeds up en masse, as if all dancing to the beat of the same drummer, or controlled by a single unseen puppeteer. -Gilda Williams