low affinity (work in progress)

When a standard USB 2.0 cable exceeds a certain length the information gets lost while the power still travels. The longer the cable gets the higher the entropy. For 100s of years it was believed that the universe was filled with a hypothetical substance, the ether, which was sometimes imagined to be a liquid, sometimes a solid – how else was light supposed to travel in space? Some substances become less translucent when their physical state changes from liquid to solid. Transitioning from liquid and taking shape, solid forms can store information as physical shape that then can be dissolved again.
These sculpture are made from USB extension cords, LEDs, and paraffin wax. Knotted like a macramé hanger and plugged into the existing outlets the structure spreads like a rhizome or spider web hanging on and from the walls. Knotting is an ancient practical and decorative craft. (Like a true millennial, I learned it on youtube.) But knots and string figures were also used to illustrate, memorize and pass on stories and transport information from generation to generation. The ends of the USB macramé structures connect either to the outlets or to LEDs cast into spheres made out of paraffin, a translucent material that has a low melting point and therefore its solid and liquid state are close together. The power flows through the whole structure to light the LEDs. The paraffin spheres have sculpted ornamental surfaces that reference medieval cosmology, cat’s cradle games and hand gestures. This work is created for a specific exhibition space that has surprisingly many outlets. It will be plugged in every single one of them.