Liquid Carpet, 1993, variable dimensions, laboratory blood, plastic, metal, pump, compressor.
The device works on the principle of sucking liquid from a container containing two color-coded compounds, one floating on the other. At the point of the inner surface where the chemicals touch each other, a hose is installed precisely to suck them in. Depending on how much of which liquid is part of the carpet hydraulic circulation, it is determined which of the liquids is currently sucked in. For example, if the red liquid predominates in the carpet system, its amount in the container decreases. As a result, the level of the colorless liquid approaches the hose and therefore its suction begins.
Liquid Carpet, 1993, variable dimensions, laboratory blood, plastic, metal, pump, compressor.
To make the flow of fluid in the fabric visible, the device is equipped with a compressor, which, in conjunction with the pump, doses air bubbles into the liquid. Thanks to their rectangular flickering in the warp and weft, the effect of apparent “revival” or “flickering dynamization” of the carpet occurs, using vibration.
Liquid Carpet, 1993, variable dimensions, laboratory blood, plastic, metal, pump, compressor, detail.
The primary formal result, however, is to achieve a state where both liquids in the fabric structure blend in color in some kind of long waves, which have an inscrutable aesthetic effect, which is caused by the unstable pressure in the hoses and also the different viscosity of the two compounds. There is a continuous mixing of incompatible substances. The regular grid system not only vibrates but also “pulsates in color amoeba-like”, and thus aesthetic changes occur that are difficult to predict.
Liquid Carpet, 1993, variable dimensions, laboratory blood, plastic, metal, pump, compressor.
Compounds used:
1 – Formaldehyde was used as a transparent liquid, which is associated with the elimination of organic substances.
2 – As a red transparent liquid, a specially modified compound was used, professionally named “Laboratory Blood” in order to avoid its degradation by formaldehyde.
The reason for using both substances was to achieve an elemental interpenetration, a mixing of antagonistic, incompatible elements, in this case associated with the idea of life and death.