Chaud time II

What happens when metallic wax drips into a wooden box?

This project explores the power of the abstract through the shapes created by metallic wax dripping from a sculpture of graphene-based radiators. The artist Ben Jack Nash turns the sculpture on and off in accordance with live data on events and processes taking place in real time. The data, projected on a screen, interacts with the suspended sculpture, determining the timing of the drips which in turn affects the size, shape and texture of the abstract forms it creates as it hits the wooden surface.

Building on from the installation artist’s idea that the ‘abstract is not a purely aesthetic representation’ but ‘its own identity’, the photographic artwork of wax as an evolving matter reveals how this identity is shaped by external and internal factors. The luminous glow from the screen projection, the metallic shine of the wax itself, muffled daylight, the wooden surface it amasses on and the aggregate state of the wax moving from liquid to solid give it a unique artistic identity.

The installation, created by Ben Jack Nash in association with Atta02 and the graphene production company Blackleaf, was exhibited at Shadok’s ‘Biennale de la Créativité’ in September 2023 in Strasbourg, where this photography project, in collaboration with Ben Jack Nash, was initiated.