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Location:STUK Ateliers, Schapenstraat 35
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Toegankelijkheid:This location is not wheelchair accessible.
Two kinetic sculptures with microphones, cement blocks and gravel allow the phenomenon of “time” to be physically experienced.
According to the philosopher Edmund Husserl, we, as humans, experience “time” in two ways: fluidly, on one hand, and on the other as an articulation of fixed moments in time. Canadian artist Adam Basanta explores both notions of time in two raw, kinetic sculptures. In the first space, A Large Inscription, a microphone is slowly dragged across a circle of gravel. This continuous, abrasive sound is occasionally broken by a loud bang in the second space. In Basanta’s work A Great Noise, at given intervals, a microphone set in a cement block is lifted and dropped loudly onto a pedestal. The works allude to the mythical figure of Sisyphus, doomed by the gods to eternally push a boulder up the mountain, only to see it roll down again and have to start all over. Both works have no beginning or end: they are endless and leave their mark at the same time, like time.
Attention! The work A Great Noise (in the second room) is very loud. Keep your distance, especially with children, and absolutely do not touch the work.
Since 2002, the STUK arts centre has been housed in a building in Naamsestraat that was then called the Arenberg Institute. This eclectic building, designed by architect Vincent Lenertz, was built by Duke Engelbert Marie of Arenberg and his mother Maria Eleonora of Arenberg. In 1907, they donated a considerable sum of money to the University of Leuven to erect a new building for teaching and research in chemistry. The inauguration of this building took place on 9 May 1909, when the seventy-fifth anniversary of the re-established Catholic University was also celebrated. The building was not quite ready at that time. Only after World War I could the laboratories and classrooms be commissioned. Once the chemists had all moved to the science campus in Heverlee in the late 1970s, the search for a new use for the building began. After a thorough renovation between 1999 and 2002 by Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutelings, arts centre STUK moved in. Meanwhile, the complex has already undergone a second thorough renovation (2021−2023).
Text: Liesbet Nys (KU Leuven)
2019
➤ Materials: Mixed-media installation. Variable dimensions. Microphones, mic stand, amplifiers, gravel, cement, cable, steel, motor, electronics.
➤ Made possible by financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
