elisa_Mechanism

A leak leaks from somewhere kept off sight by the square grid that covers the studio’s technical ceiling. Each panel of the grid is composed of several layers of plaster, polyurethane foam, synthetic fibers, and binding substances, like a sandwich. The leak slowly penetrates all the layers. When the material is saturated with moisture, a body of water starts taking the unique shape of a drop, and only when it’s heavy enough (about 0,05 milligrams), it drips. Then it falls from a height of aprproximately 3 meters, and hits the floor, where it merges another body of water conformed by the drops that fell before her. Back in the grid a ghostly figure has emerged: concentric shades of brown resembling a used coffee filter grow from the exact point where the leak leaks. For their size and colour one can tell the infiltration isn’t precisely recent. After an undetermined time the sandwich panel, too soaked to withstand its own weight anymore, collapses.

All of a sudden a fascinating tubular infrastructure has become visible: steel conduits covered with insulating fibers and aluminium foil, PVC ducting (presumably, the origin of our leak), copper plumbing, and other pipe-like structures containing various dozens of electrical and optical fiber cables. It’s easy to imagine water, air, electricity, and data traveling at various speeds through this sort of suspended highway, making the space of the studio inhabitable. A greater complexity is implicit within these visible components. It’s funny how when all the apparatus of a system work smoothly, the system itself nearly becomes invisible... Leaks outperform the predefined functions of a system. If not fixed in time, the effects of this small misperformance will be irreversible, and will cause the collapse of part, if not the whole, structure. Rapid intervention is needed: water tap should be closed, automatic switches put down, and the area closed to circulation until repair. Then, the grid must be replaced, so we cease to see the guts.