THREE STUDIES ON NATURAL PRINCIPALS AND FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF NATURE

VIDEO INSTALLATION

Open Gallery Space, 355a, Bowery, Manhattan. NY


The Ancient Greeks believed that all things are made of the four states of matter: Earth, water, air, and fire. Couto brings together objects and three of four videos based on each of these estates. The installation is one outcome of a year project that remains in motion: The investigation of the natural principles and fundamental forces of nature.


Água (Water) is a study on the principle of entropy. The film proposes a return to the formless state of the body. The viewer confronts strong entropic elements. Organic and inorganic nature seems to move towards an orderly balance, yet, by the laws of physics, especially the First Law of Thermodynamics, which refers to the conservation of energy, all things in the universe tend to go from order to disorder. In work, such transformation is a cyclical movement of life and death.


Gravitation could be thought of like a downward pulling force, but Couto is more concerned with it as a pulling together between two bodies. The environment and the body thought of as an assemblage, become a place of exploration of a new unity.


In Conservation of Energy, the body (matter) is questioned as potential energy when challenged by minimal-almost absent motion, an extended period of exposition to high heat and steam, and the effort to hold a bull's heart in the hands.




Videos

When shown together: 3m 15s. Loop. 2014-2015

Conceptualized and Produced by Simone Couto

Edited by Marcos Kuzka Cunha, Marianna Olinger and Simone Couto

Sound Design by Marcos Kuzka Cunha




1.

Entropy

A measure of disorder

The change in the entropy of a system is

The same for any process that goes from

A given initial state to a given final state


(Whether the process irreversible

               Or reversible)

Water

The body in water

Dissolution


2.

Gravitation

Natural phenomenon by which

All physical bodies attract each other

The cause of the formation, shaping

And trajectory of non-visible bodies


(Call it the inevitable orbit

And their pathos)


The fall

Acceptance of weak forces

Disambiguation


3.

Conservation of Energy

Can be neither created nor be destroyed. Yet it can change form

Total energy of an isolated system

Remains constant and conserved over time


(The body holds an object

The reptile is trapped in a glass bowl)


Heat isn’t a property of a system

But is instead a property of processes that transfer energy

Mechanical energy propagated by a material's oscillations


Deformation of a material (or its container)

Exhibits a restorative force coming from

Holding your heart in my hands


The motion is

Potential energy

Evaporation


Água

Gravitation

Conservation of Energy (Upon request)

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