CLOCKWORK
MELON
AGEING, in MELONCHOLY
A project by Benjamin Haaksma, Victor Liu & Céline Besse
Everyone ages, despite not everyone, can willingly accept this truth. People have created so many works to celebrate life and youth, but we believe the journey towards the other side is also worth being treated seriously.
Exploring the Concept
As a team, we were interested in creating a creature that would represent the quality of ageing. The concept of ageing provides us with a broad spectrum of ideas. We initially linked ageing with the inevitable decline or debilitation. This tendency to decline can be widely seen in our daily lives: the fade of the colour, the erosion of the rocks, the fall or collapse of a structure – every *destruction through time* is acceptable. It might be more straightforward when it comes to humans, like the losing memory, the numbing limbs, the weakening perception… There seem to be so many ways to interpret the concept of ageing. However, the actual problem still lies ahead.
While ageing is overwhelmingly common in our lives, realising the idea with a purely artificial object is the most challenging part. On the one hand, we cannot just put some food here and let them rot – although it’s also a type of ageing. On the other hand, to create perceivable effects within a timespan of one hour is much more demanding than our expectation since there are few references.
After careful consideration, we agreed on a fundamental principle: to bring as little technology as possible, which reflects the inner states of some elderly citizens. As the age increases, they have problems processing complex ideas and become increasingly reluctant to technology.
The creature : Clockwork Melon
Clockwork Melon is a very simple creature constituted of a box, servo, sensors and a watermelon. Clockwork Melon is a sensible creature that wears itself down by being alive. The servo situated at the top of the structure generates reciprocating movements. A piece of sandpaper is attached to the servo, continuously rubs the watermelon, and slowly abrades the material. As time passes, less would be left out of the watermelon, and its inner parts (pulp) would be visible, just like the bones of a corpse.
We are trying to represent what time and the surrounding environment do to living things through this work.
The watermelon resembles an animal's head, which also stands for vitality.
The ultrasonic sensor, looking like a person's eyes, detects the distance of people moving around to imitate social interactions.
The LDR and temperature sensors stand for the environment we're in as biological entities.
The sensors are responsible for the movements of the servo. Their extreme sensibility to the environment makes the servo run endlessly.
We also put a sunlight lamp in the exhibition, which took place in a dark room, to create a dome-like projection, standing for the world we live in. It also added to the melancholy atmosphere.
This process will be ever-running until the watermelon is totally gone, as a representation of death and the uniqueness of life.
With this work, we want the audience to reflect on their mortality and the ageing process, but also put in a light that even artificial objects follow the same process. We are all equal when it comes to the wrath of time.
ENVIRONMENT + SOCIAL INTERACTIONS + TIME = AN UNNOTICABLE PROCESS "NEVER" ENDS