Fließgleichgewicht (Flow Equilibrium) consists of modules that cover the entire floor of the exhibition space. For the work’s realization, the panels will be manufactured out of clay, coated with colorful glazes, and then laid out on the floor without grouting. As a result, the viewer will move on “shaky” ground: he or she will be deprived of the visual and sensory cues that normally ensure orientation and stability. The aesthetic dimension subtly blends into the perceived and felt irritations. What is more, a specific pattern (such as cubes whose top faces are flipped open) or a minor displacement of the square floor panels relative to the gallery’s rectangular plan result in an optical distortion, tilting, or dynamization of the space.
Italian mosaic floors from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, such as those in Palladio’s villas and palaces, are the “found structure” on which the work is based. To execute it, I will need to document the mosaics in photographs and make full-size graphic reproductions, from which I will glean the details to be elaborated. The found forms, along with the ones I develop from them, are dismantled in order to reassemble their components in a new configuration that yields the envisioned final result as described above.