Erratico accidentale calibro 100 nº1, 2018

3D Printing in "polilactic acid" (PLA)
10 × 10 × 10 cm
Something moves but doesn't move
Umberto Cavenago presents a small work that is the quintessence of a paradox.
A paradox of glacial origin revisited by calculating reason. Able to return the intersection between the moment of intuition and scientific planning, Cavenago prepares a minimal intervention, focusing attention on an element with a geometric character, almost playful and luminous in the way it appears inside the space.
The small destabilized polyhedron, which is the result of a rewriting of a truncated hexedron with irregular faces that cancel out all the angles at 90 degrees, with a reference to a natural element with a mysterious motif: the erratic boulder.
By definition, an erratic boulder is a boulder (of varying size and many are known) that is not immobile, at least for human eyes and times. In fact, it has a very slow, indefinite geological cadence; its condition, almost philosophical, is that of infinitesimal displacement.
Cavenago thus imagines a shape drawn by chance, and builds by reference, a tetracaidecahedron, a solid archimedean with numerous faces and edges born from a regular polyhedron ready to move and support on the horizontal plane, a shape linked to the accidentality of wandering. It is placed on the ground, in a circular space obtained by the displacement of the dry leaves, as if to recall a void given by a possible impact (it was believed that the erratic boulders came from the sky, from the stars, like stones thrown by the gods). In Erratico accidentale rationality and causality meet.

Luca Scarabelli
Copy from the real
First part: in nature
The shape of a boulder is designed by the accidents of its own wandering, irregular concave and convex planes define the morphology of the rock formations that move with the force of gravity and erosion from the mountain to the sea level. Mechanical disintegration without apparent design turns the blocks into smaller and smaller debris, and over time, into grains of sand.
Second part: in the project
I cannot imagine a rock unless starting from the simplest of Platonic solids: the regular hexahedron with 6 square faces. Truncating its 8 vertices with sharp and random cuts will destabilize the shape of the cube increasing its faces from 6 to 14 thus canceling all the angles at 90 degrees. The process generates an irregular polyhedron with increased support surfaces, better suited to displacement.

Valentina Petter with Erratico accidentale at the votive chapel of Castello Cabiaglio on the occasion of the installation

Erratico accidentale calibro 100 nº1, 2018

3D Printing in "polilactic acid" (PLA)
10 × 10 × 10 cm
Something moves but doesn't move
Umberto Cavenago presents a small work that is the quintessence of a paradox.
A paradox of glacial origin revisited by calculating reason. Able to return the intersection between the moment of intuition and scientific planning, Cavenago prepares a minimal intervention, focusing attention on an element with a geometric character, almost playful and luminous in the way it appears inside the space.
The small destabilized polyhedron, which is the result of a rewriting of a truncated hexedron with irregular faces that cancel out all the angles at 90 degrees, with a reference to a natural element with a mysterious motif: the erratic boulder.
By definition, an erratic boulder is a boulder (of varying size and many are known) that is not immobile, at least for human eyes and times. In fact, it has a very slow, indefinite geological cadence; its condition, almost philosophical, is that of infinitesimal displacement.
Cavenago thus imagines a shape drawn by chance, and builds by reference, a tetracaidecahedron, a solid archimedean with numerous faces and edges born from a regular polyhedron ready to move and support on the horizontal plane, a shape linked to the accidentality of wandering. It is placed on the ground, in a circular space obtained by the displacement of the dry leaves, as if to recall a void given by a possible impact (it was believed that the erratic boulders came from the sky, from the stars, like stones thrown by the gods). In Erratico accidentale rationality and causality meet.

Luca Scarabelli
Copy from the real
First part: in nature
The shape of a boulder is designed by the accidents of its own wandering, irregular concave and convex planes define the morphology of the rock formations that move with the force of gravity and erosion from the mountain to the sea level. Mechanical disintegration without apparent design turns the blocks into smaller and smaller debris, and over time, into grains of sand.
Second part: in the project
I cannot imagine a rock unless starting from the simplest of Platonic solids: the regular hexahedron with 6 square faces. Truncating its 8 vertices with sharp and random cuts will destabilize the shape of the cube increasing its faces from 6 to 14 thus canceling all the angles at 90 degrees. The process generates an irregular polyhedron with increased support surfaces, better suited to displacement.
Photo © Luca Scarabelli
Photo © Luca Scarabelli
Photo © Luca Scarabelli

Related works