Similarly to his previous residencies, George Koutsouris has used the facilities at the Wood and Metal workshops to construct parts of two kinetic sound sculptures; this time for a group exhibition at By Art Matters museum, Hangzhou, China (which included in total three works by George).
Dec. 2024
The first sculpture, ‘Ocean machine II’ is an advanced version of the original ‘Ocean machine’, that was built also at SVFK for his solo exhibition ‘Nature Symphony’, 2022 and was shown at 3daysOfDesign – selected projects at SVFK, 2024. The ‘Ocean machine II, consists of three moving wooden trays with thousands of rolling steel balls, that produce a more complex and more realistic sound effect of ocean waves.
‘By Art Matters’ supported the production of all three works and acquired ‘Ocean machine II’ for their permanent collection.
George utilized mainly the CNC machine and other smaller tools to construct the lightweight, but very sturdy plywood trays that contain the steel balls and vibrate with their movement – like guitar bodies. However, equally important were the small aluminium components that help moving the trays underneath, which were constructed with high precision at the metal workshop. Purely for saving shipping costs, the solid maple stand of the sculpture was produced locally by the museum in China, and the final assembling was performed there by George.
For the same exhibition, George created the moving parts of the ‘Moment of concurrence’, a minimal sound installation presented first at Kunsthal Sophienholm, 2022. Again, while the main aluminium frame was produced locally, George had to create and test all other parts, including the wooden spinning arms, and the rest aluminium components.
