Bbz- Möbius - “15”
Sonic Wooden Panel, vinilic glue, pigments and salt. 2006

detail of "15" [ higher resolution 1.2Mb ]

*** NOTE: Please excuse the poor translation, as soon as I have time it'll get better !

This panel is the 15th of 14 (!) panels that form a Moebius strip open, part of the installation "bbz-moebius".The structure was created specifically for nt art gallery of Bologna, for “ncvi l’8 - Nel Caso V’Interessi L’Infinito”.

“15” is situated along a journey that starts outside the gallery, and resumes the various systemic relationships that build the entire installation and it's moments:

A. From outside you look at the strip inside (with a web cam and a screen) in the last room;
B. Entering the first room you can hear the sound coming from the room with the strip and you can start to see only a part but closer, from a geometric window; the sound in this ambient is captured and processed in the room with the strip;
C. We get to the passage (like a suspension from the first and last sound ambient) where “15” is situated,hanged in front of a sounding corridor. The panel diffuses a sinusoid simple wave, silence,and another sound which is a multiple of the frequency of the first;
D. At last you enter the room with the Moebius strip, that can be “walked within” up to a curve/arch. A part of the eight hence formed, is full of earth and salt. In the room you can hear the sound captured in the first room and processed.

The relations we encounter are those between the person, the ambient, the sound and the object. For each element we have tried to create, at least metaphorically, small systems built with self organized structures, as much as the installation in it's whole becomes a system of relations. In the next lines we'll concentrate on this aspect of “bbz-moebius”.
The 14 panels are joint together in a sequence that is inspired by the Moebius strip and it investigates the relation between internal and external space generated by the architecture. The parallel with the non movable geometries is not limited to the mere concave-convex structure: the panels are painted on both their faces with different results, yet with similar technique and same material, in order to develop in this way two "meanings" in the space. The two faces of the strip transform one in the other, creating the ideal of perpetual motion, as in Escher's the famous illustration “Mobius Strip II”, 1963.

Escher “Mobius Strip II”, of 1963	bbz-Mobius

It is interesting and difficult to find the flex point of this sequence, meaning the exact point where the inner becomes external due to the paint texture threads in contrast and for the consistency of the spaces generated.
The form of each single piece is arbitrary; it builds up from it's dimensions, with a simple process of reduction in a sequence of triangles (used in geodesy as much as in topography): on one side the intersection of the two circles with same ray as of the other two dimensions of the triangle will find the missing angle (it will find two but we're only interested in one). The bi dimensional composition of the pieces is based on a simple grammatical rule: each element is joint to the next by only one side of equal dimension; hence the sequence is formed by successive polygons, that create a theme with individual variations and joint by the unifying dimensions. Each piece starts with the last part of the previous and determines the start of the next one, in a theoretically never ending succession. Within the organization of the forms in space the panels find their static equilibrium when they encounter the floor. Being the panels joint with single connection points, infinite equilibrium positions are met with the movement of each single piece, yet only one configuration will guarantee stability if you consider the movements subsequently, meaning that once the equilibrium is found with the horizontal surface of two pieces, the successive piece will have only one possible final position that will lead it to achieve the equilibrium "by form".
The complete procedure, from the triangulation to the rotations when positioning, remembers the technique of origami, but belonging to a structure that self-constructs, claiming the territory given as an animal would do in it's own land.

bbz-Mobius: project images

A similar procedural approach was taken for the painting, the basic rule was based on the proportions of elements used for each side of the panels. As a recipe (or algorithm), we use x amount of an element E in relation Y with another for T times, in an ambient given A (in this case a percent of water and vinilic glue on wood)
The painting is there for example of the research for equilibrium between physical interacting elements (wood, water, glue, oxides and salt) nearly an experiment of the second and third law of thermodynamics (or in some moments similar to a synergetic system). The painting hence becomes also a metaphor of time within the panel and the Moebius strip.

bbz-Mobius: detail of a panel

We have seen how our Moebius strip is not simply derived from the formula:

also the sound processing algorithm doesn't derive from it, instead the approach during composition had inherent procedures with tendency to infinite. We have and algorithm that processes the sound through the pc to the speakers, that is made of a sequence of delays in the reproduction of captured sound and random variables. The variables that dictate the quantity of sound in input and output and the quality of the repetition are numbers produced by the volume of the incoming sound, generated in the ambient. This, for example, creates the situation for which the more sound you make in the room A the more sonic material is processed and elaborated in room B, but in room A the processed sound from room B is elaborated too: a cycle is then created, a small example of an 8 turned upside down.

A diffuses B B diffuses A	Screen: algorithm in PD
	> alteration volume in A > alteration sound in B > alteration volume in B > alteration sound in A

The ensemble of these micro-systems inside the path from outside to inside, leads the visitor to be a significant part of a macro-system, where he relates to the ambient created and that contemporarily he/she creates. Similarly the architectonic structure must find it's static equilibrium, the delayed and repeated sounds cross space, the salt crystallizes with the metal oxides.
Once at the end of the path, when returning back, you have contemporarily a partial and total vision of the installation, of detail and of all. A vision that is probably completed only in a second moment, in absence of the object.
These are some of the aspects of the "bbz" project, that , in this location, was realized in the form of a Moebius strip installation/path.

Matias Guerra, Andrea Lorito