Bimetallurgy

I have extracted the bimetallic coil from a mechanical thermostat in hopes of using it to create something responsive to heat that can help in mapping out the thermal bounds of a radiant heat object. This strip of wound metal is extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and begins to respond immediately and precisely. I turned on a lamp within six inches of the coil and here is a picture of before the lamp was turned on, after two seconds and after five seconds. The change happens so fast and the motion it goes through has so much potential, but the coil itself is made of such a thin gauge of metal that it is extremely lightweight and delicate; if I want to attach something to the coil it will have to be incredibly lightweight as well.

Review: Between Form and Force

Ramiro, Mario. “Between Form and Force: Connecting Architectonic, Telematic and Thermal Spaces.” Leonardo 31.4 (1998): 247-60. JSTOR. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.

This article is described as a survey of the work of the author from the 1970s to the mid 1990s as he began to work with various forms of alternative media, specifically with the rise of new technologies such as photocopiers and advances in television. Of specific interest to me is his work on thermal sculptures; a method for modulating the environment as our senses perceive it through controlled volumes of heat.

He aimed in previous work “to extend the limits of an object, that are normally invisible, through radiation and propagation of heat waves. The idea of freeing an object from the action of gravity…” (p. 255) This was taken further in his work titled “Force Field”  in which “the heat waves radiated by the internal elements and reflected by surfaces that are part of the structure’s structure form a volume around the object by means of turbulence created in the atmosphere. This ‘modeling’ of space around the object is normally invisible to the human eye. I imagined being able to disclose the form of these immaterial volumes in space, calculating that the shape of the heating elements would produce different configurations of atmospheric volumes. Thus, a determined modification on the visible plane would correspond to another on the invisible plane.” (p. 255)

I find this statement of intent extremely valuable, with this as a starting point I would like to somehow visualize the volumes created by radiant heat sources in a three dimensional way rather than the method of Schlieren photography later practiced by Ramiro when he moved to Germany.

The Bounds of Thermal Sculpture

I read an article from volume 31, no. 4 of Leonardo in 1998 titled “Between Form and Force: Connecting Architectonic and Thermal Spaces,” written by Mario Ramiro, the experimental artist mentioned in the previous post. I am curious about the bounds of the heat created by these sculptures, or any radiant heat object; are the volumes clearly defined or do they slowly blend into surrounding volumes?

Image from the article “Between Form and Force: Connecting Architectonic and Thermal Spaces” published in Leonardo 1998 vol. 31, no. 4, p. 255

I imagine that by creating irregularly shaped physical bases for the thermal sculpture (like the one pictured), that Ramiro intended to create a volume of heat whose form corresponds to that of the physical base. In my drawing I have expressed this immaterial volume of heat as a cloud with somewhat defined and slowly fading bounds, because this is my initial idea of what it may look like. Now the task is to record the real situation occurring around a radiant heat object and to bring it into optic existence.

Phenomenological Interest

Immaterial – something that does not exist in the material world, or something that doesn’t exist in the immediate visual world?

Heat has boundaries, it occupies space in a sense yet in another sense it does not. It has limits, and it transitions from hot to cold over areas sometimes as vast and open as a continent, but also over smaller and more defined spaces such as buildings, and even individual rooms within buildings.

Mario Ramiro is an experimental artist who has been working within the bounds of non-traditional media since to late 1970s. He, along with many other members of the artistic community at the time performed “Urban Interventions” in public spaces in Sao Paulo, Brazil. More recently, in the 1990s, he began to look at thermal sculpture in a series titled “Force Field.” This work looked at the ability to create three dimensional shapes of heat using radiant sources that might generate a volume of heat that had specific limits. This transitioned into the desire to see heat, and after moving to Germany he began to use techniques of laser photography to view the movement of heat around objects, and later schlieren photography to view this heat and the objects at the same time.

What is the nature of the volume of heat that creeps from a radiant source? Does it have set limits before its border abruptly meets that of another climactic influence or is it bound more by the physical constraints of an encasing space?

I would like to take a closer look at mapping the volumetric area occupied by heat produced through a radiant source.