Infragilis

2017
In collaboration with Sylvain Courrech Du Pont, physicist, and Simon de Dreuille, architect

Installation and video
Glass, water, movement, sand, brass model, remote control

Sand dunes are made from constantly evolving particles. Like the river that flows, it preserves its own form by constantly renewing itself. In doing so, it escapes entropy.  By contrast, buildings are aimed to stay immobile. But without human intervention, they will degrade over time, undergoing entropy.

These two opposed modes of being go hand in hand in the installation Infragilis.  Using the water density, as water is 800 times heavier than air, The MSC laboratory has developed a 1/800 scale dune formation simulation machine, to study dune morphogenesis.  We placed into this machine a scale model of the Palais de Tokyo architecture, to invite the desert into  the exhibition space. The immersed model thus interferes with the dunes,  it is invaded by the sand, undergoes its friction. In return, it modifies the shape and trajectory of the dunes.  Concrete degrades, particles aggregate with the sand and erode the structure to which they belonged.