ARTISTTALK — Niklas Roy (DE)

Niklas Roy (DE) - # 1

Wrocław - October 12, 2012

During the talk summarizing his residency at the WRO Art Center, Niklas Roy presents his newest site-specific installation Perpetual Energy […]

During the talk summarizing his residency at the WRO Art Center, Niklas Roy presents his newest site-specific installation Perpetual Energy Waisting Machine created in Wrocław, as well as some of his older works, that are connected with Wrocław: a kinetic vintage object Grafikdemo that was shown at WRO 05 Biennale and the interactive installation International Dance Party he built together with Adad Hannah, a Canadian artist whom he met at WRO 05,

Perpetual Energy Wasting Machine is a rope and pulley mechanism, installed in the staircase of the WRO Art Center. The mechanism connects the sliding doors of the elevator in one floor with the elevator call button on another floor. Operating in two directions on the first and on the second floor, the contraption automatically moves the elevator cabin in an infinite loop between those two levels. The installation moves the elevator in recurring cycles. As this is an hydraulic elevator, and as the cabin´s mass is not equalized by a counterweight, only the movement up consumes electricity. Estimating that the empty elevator cabin has a mass of 350 Kilograms, the wasted energy is about 11.8 Kilojoules per cycle. A modified printing calculator inside the elevator cabin keeps track of the wasted energy, automatically adding up 5.9 Kilojoules for each half cycle. The results of this symbolic calculation – which does neither regard energy loss by friction, nor a heavier cabin due to possible passengers – go straight to a waste bin, located beneath the printing calculator.

In general I like mechanisms and machines. (...) I was really scanning everything of Wrocław for potential places to make something interesting (...) and I said this is also interesting, this elevator...