four kinetic objects with magnets and metal particles
dim: diameter 12 cm
Kinetic objects take part in the multimedia project Attractions – Similarities that focuses on magnetism as a physical phenomenon, by visualizing it in various ways, using kinetic objects, videos, drawings, and photographs of visually magnified particle configurations. The tracking of this invisible natural activity – sound and visual recordings of the movement of magnetic particles – speak metaphorically of the strange inner order of vaguely random or chaotic (natural and cerebral) phenomena, and at the same time call into question our cognitive ability to distinguish between living and non-living, between natural and unnatural.
'As one of the primary phenomena in nature, magnetism and its idiosyncrasies, invisibility and visible consequences of mutual interactions of elements have for a long time been proofs of magic that belongs to nature, as well as, in its secondary form, to the uniting, communicational and inexplicable human relationships on one hand, and the influence of the cosmic events on the individual (through the researches of astrology, alchemy and magic) on the other hand. If we continue with the analogy between the nature and the human relationships (and in this manner we also read the title of Uršula’s exhibition Attractions), between the personalization of the natural phenomena, the one that human, in order to better understand nature’s actions, has been creating since the beginnings of the civilization, we can remember a sour opinion about the communication in Michel Houellebcq’s book Platform: “Human relationships are not complicated. They are often unsolvable, but not complicated.” If we believe what the writer says (and why, according to our own experiences, wouldn’t we?) then the beauty of the seemingly complex relationships lies exactly in their simple constellation which however we rarely comprehend. Nature, this intelligent mechanism with the infinite forms of manifestations, about which years ago the theory of chaos was controlling, now in the latest scientific researches, that still are not united in their opinion, shows itself as an inherently ordered complex. Chaos and complexity should thus be a part of the “writable” order, of a higher or smaller degree of self-organization that emerges in an organism and is being translated into more evolved systems.' – Nataša Petrešin, ' Invisible life of attractions', 2005 (excerpt)