EMF article in the Weekly Technical Magazine

Here’s a link to an article about the Electromagnetic Fountain by Stein Jarle Olsen, published in the Norwegian Weekly Technical Magazine, 02.11.2008.

The article is called “Sprutende ingeniørkunst” in Norwegian, and I’m finding it hard to translate “sprutende” to English. Shooting, splashing? The best word I can hit on is ejaculating. Discussing the problem in the kitchen of Canadian artist (and my hostess with the mostess) Vicki Moulder, we come up with two alternative English titles:

1. Ejaculatory Engineering Art
2. The Art of Engineered Ejaculation
Other alternative suggestions welcome :-)

(photo by Stein Jarle Olsen)

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RGB lights arrive, but no relay box

The 2 remaining RGB lights finally arrived today, but the relay box for the solenoid valves, expected at 13.00, still hasn’t made it through the post. It’s frustrating because I really want to see the whole thing up and running, and to make sure the pump that serves the solenoid valves is strong enough, and that the switch box/relay box system works too.

Last night brought with it some minor glitches, such as a potential risk of water spill flowing in to the electronics chamber from one of the bars supporting the fountain bowl, and a defunked blue colour on one of the RGB lights on a pentagon water jet. It takes 3 weeks to get hold of a new one – and we really don’t have time to hang around for it. I’m going to move the funky light out of the pentagon format and put it in the group of 3 that surrounds the central jet. I’ll try and aim this light at the top of the jet – it will always have a red/yellowish colour though. Another option is to get a white light from my studio in Oslo, and replace it with that.

So all that happened today was that Marius hooked up the 2 new lights and placed the funky one in the centre.

And just in case you are thinking that Marius is the only one getting dirty lying under the fountain – you are wrong! I do it too – but I’m the only one taking photos.

It’s extemely cold in the warehouse. And even colder when you’re wet. So once everything is up and running I’m planning to fill the bowl with warmish water and get my bikini on to focus the lights. I can’t reach the central ones without getting in the bowl, and I can’t focus them without the jets being at their full height.

Houston, we have one less problem

It was a very busy day today.

It started with nothing much going on, so I fiddled around, adjusting this and that. Then Frank Ralle came and fixed the pump tubes. He also reminded me of something that he previously told me that I should do – get rid of the air in the pumps each time the water is drained out of the fountain bowl. Silly me. By 14.40 the central jet sprang out of the bowl reaching a height that must exceed 4m. Fab!

At 15.00 most of the NLI Engineering AS team turned up, as well as a journalist from the Weekly Technical Magazine (Teknisk Uke Blad) to interview us all and take photos. It was a pity that the relay box and the last 2 rgb lights hadn’t arrived, but at least one jet was behaving very nicely. The seance lasted about 2 hours, so I hope he’ll write some good stuff.

During the evening the fountain took part in an open day at Klosterøya – a good opportunity to get some feedback, even though the fountain isn’t finished yet. Several of the people who work at Bautas turned up which made me very happy. Below is the only half-decent photo I have of the fountain in operation. It doesn’t really give a good impression of the water jet, and shows the need for 2 more lights to capture the height of the jet at night.

Lastly, here’s a screenshot of the max patch for the EMF that was made with the help of Trond Lossius at BEK last week. (Some of the sub-patches can be found on my Flickr site. Click the image below to get there).

EMF the news!

Here’s a link to an article in “Varden” about the Electromagnetic Fountain, and the partnership with NLI Engineering Industry AS. (Norwegian only)