During last decade Ctrl+Z has developed low-tech systems for the empowerment of communities and the construction of functional structures based on geodesic geometries.
Simultaneously a theoretical research around the ideas of symmetry, chirality and specularity of whole geometric configurations and of their elements and components has been developed.
This research has been fundamental for the development of the functional systems and, at the same time, disclosed an entire world of relation and configurations that leaded to a path of visual and sculptural productions.
Working on mathematical models the possibilities are infinite and one can continue exploring new configurations forever. Among the many configurations that have been studied few have been materialized in sculptures.
These sculptures have inherited the philosophy of the large scale functional structures, exploring models that can be realized with simple tools, infrastructures and materials, deliberately avoiding solutions that would have lead to the necessity of CNC processes, to privilege simplicity and reclaim a more personal journey.
Those premises, together with the dimensions of the proposed models, promoted their realization through a handcraft process.
The possibility to produce without the need of external or automatized means, allowed the leisurely pace of a personal process and leave the necessary space to establish a physical and intellectual relation between the author and the piece he’s creating and with its constituent materials.
Space for observation and reflection on the intermediate states of the geometrical configuration as it is materializing.
Once created, the presence of those proposals in public spaces allow people to appreciate the movements and the transformations of the patterns along the object, and allows me to anonymously sit and enjoy the spontaneous debate about mathematics and geometries they generate.
Agua (2016)
80 x 120 x 200 cm
Pvc blinds; onions, potatoes, lemons, oranges nets; broken umbrellas; oil tank; funnel; pallet.
“Agua” (Water) is a luminous artistic installation inspired by the Ctrl+Z’s work on the “fog traps”, a scale model, an example of reduced dimensions, which maintains all the characteristics of the original that presents a height between eight and twelve meters.
The geometric study of this prototype has focused on the regular subdivision of the cylindrical surface enhancing the appearance of functional and aesthetic patterns and at the same time the mathematical simplicity of the design itself.
Recovered and reused materials were mainly used.
Aire (2019)
230 x 230 x 230 x 230 cm
Paneles de madera de densidad media
During several year a research that leaded to the definition of the Z-desic construction system (Sorbole, Parcc Oasis, etc.) was developed. The geometrical configuration of this system sets curved elements around reciprocal joints known as Leonardo (da Vinci) grid.
The mathematical sculpture “Aire” (Air) sprouts and feeds of this journey. The searched symmetry and equilibrium are finally obtained through operation of translation, rotation, mirroring and superpositions, with a set of asymmetric subdivisions. The regular subdivision of the spheric surface is obtained through the irregular subdivision of the constituent elements.
This process implied a specific comprehension and redefinition of the same meaning of the concepts of symmetry, chirality and specularity on a spherical surface and the apparent relations they establish through their application on a three-dimensional curved surface.
Aire plays with these concepts and configures a geometrical set that mesmerize the eye in the search for foreground patterns while investigating the relationships that are created by the inevitable superposition with the background.
My personal urge and fascination for the shadows produced by those structures led to a photographic collection that was enriched with collaborations established with different photographers through the years.
Ironically after all the mathematical efforts produced to articulate schemes that allows to describe curved three-dimensional geometries trough planar elements, when the sun, or a light, devolve and relegate again the produced geometries to a two-dimensional plane, is when I found them powerfully hypnotizing.