Tuning ParaSites, 2011
Oscillating car fans with adjustable clamp, cigarette lighter plug
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The fans of Tuning ParaSites are attached to the fences of "secured residences". A plug, at the other end of the tentacular sculpture, connects to the cigarette lighter socket of a car.
Tuning ParaSites is part of our global project ParaSites, which explores the potential of using behaviours and strategies of parasites as models for sculptural propositions in the built environment. We consider the protective enclosures around residences as the new membranes of the architectural organs whose (traffic) arteries guarantee their autarky. A membrane’s function is to filter, in one way or another, toxic substances, and, indeed, the boundaries around residences are often filled with waste: plastics tangled up in fences and paper sent flying from rubbish bins left at the entrance gates. What an opportunity for ParaSites looking for a niche from which they are not too rapidly expelled! With the image of membranal fences in mind, it seems pertinent to us to make them resonate. Of course, our sculpture needs electric energy to function, and in this urban host environment - where impassable fences and gates are mainly traversed by automobile bubbles equipped with a code - the car appears to be an almost "natural" source of electricity from which Tunig ParaSites can feed of.