Tension

short descriptionThe tension between people, nations and cultures is tearing the world apart - slowly and subtly. Good and bad, war and peace, this duality view seems to be an oversimplified way of seeing the world. At the same time this creates the greatest tension. Tension gives form to the structure and it also has the potential to destroy it.

A framed and tensioned cloth is connected to 8 motor units. The analysis of several news-feeds on 'good' and 'bad' in nowadays world provides the input for those motors that pull and release the hooked membrane. A constant interplay between opposing forces produces movement, deformation and destruction of the material.
exhibitions Tension is currently installed at the Future exhibition at the IT-ceum museum in Linköping starting Dec 9th 2006 until February 2007. setupA wooden frame is suspended from the ceiling, a more or less elastic membrane is framed by 8 wired hooks. The hooks are connected to 8 motor units that consist of a DC motor and necessary gears for transforming the force into linear motion. The motor units are able to coil up and decoil the cords and therefore increase and decrease the tension on the membrane.

A computer that is connected to the internet runs a php-script periodically. The script analyses several news-feeds and outputs a 'good vs. bad' value for each of them. A Processing script reads in those values and sends according commands by serial connection. A microprocessor interprets the signals activates the 8 motor driving circuits through a multiplexer.

image documentation [1] The installation in its initial state. [2] Setting up the system.

[3] Our motor unit build of lego parts. [4] The motor driving circuits. [5] A first testing mode. [6] Attachment to the cloth. [7] Deformation patterns. [8] Deformation patterns. video documentation