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SAMUEL ST-AUBIN (CA)
Œuf, Spaghetti, Prosperity
ICRA 2019: Robots and Art Program
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
May 20-24, 2019 Montreal, Canada
BIO - SAMUEL ST-AUBIN
Samuel St-Aubin has been part of the electronic arts world since 2002. He has helped produce the work of a number of Quebec artists and collectives. For the past few years, he has been focusing on his own creative efforts. The electronics technician reinvents everyday objects. He injects another dimension into his creations that goes beyond the utilitarian reality of the object, by diverting them from their primary purpose, radically disrupting our relationship with the object. With unflinching precision, his works let us tap into the poetry of the everyday, discovered in the simplicity of existence.
Œuf, Spaghetti, Prosperity
Œuf
Œuf is a kinetic sculptures deal with the behaviour of matter and the control exercised over it by electromechanical devices. The movements of the mechanism are constantly repeated and put four eggs in balance exercises. Sometimes, those eggs pass from one spoon to another, driving the visitor’s attention on the risk taken during the action. When there is no egg involved, the spoons perform a poetic choreography. The work highlights the exchange between the machine and the movement of matter while revealing the poetic side of everyday life that often escapes our attention.
Spaghetti
In Spaghetti, the viewer encounter a machine forcing a piece of spaghetti to its breaking point with precision and inevitability. Watching it, one has the sense of seeing one’s psychological and bodily tensions transferred to the machine, as well as the experience of the body subjected to the technological pressure of modern life.
Prosperity
Prosperity is a stand-alone installation that manages grains of rice. It is located halfway between the food-processing machine and the “pick-and-place” machine which is used in assembly lines for printed circuit boards. Unlike these machines, Prosperity moves slowly, taking care to properly analyze the shape and orientation of each grain. A tweezer move from one surface to the other, gripping on its way the grains which have been placed randomly, and then depositing them in an orderly manner on a second surface. This process leaves the grains aligned while preserving their initial orientation.