Potential energies
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
Our relationship to energy is daily : turning on a light, or opening the tap on a radiator. These experiences of energy are technical, dematerialized, miniaturized. Through different energetic experiences, I explored more direct ways of consuming energy, revealing potential energies, present around us. How to interact with them, until you can feel them ? My project consists of 3 objects : a solar shower, a natural limestone air cooler and a brushwood powered oven.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Our relationship to energy is daily : turning on a light, or opening the tap on a radiator. These experiences of energy are technical, dematerialized, miniaturized. Through different energetic experiences, I explored more direct ways of consuming energy, revealing potential energies, present around us. How to interact with them, until you can feel them ? My project consists of 3 objects : a solar shower, a natural limestone air cooler and a brushwood powered oven.
Key objectives for sustainability
I have first experimented a short hot shower thanks to a garden hose let under the sun. I have reinterpreted this phenomena trough the drawing of a garden shower. By wrapping up 30 meters of hose which represents 8 Liters of water, it made a 1 minute shower. In 1 hour, the shower loads itself at the sun and becomes a one minute shower. Depending on the region, the shower will have a different color: a green or black anodization in Brittany for instance, that will absorb all the Uv's of the sun, and a light blue anodization in south Italy.
The second object uses the ancestral principle of evaporative cooling. The transformation of water, from the liquid state, to the gaseous state, consumed energy, that is to say heat. The technique is ancestral, used in many hot regions. In Morocco, the stone fountains of the interior courtyards evaporate the water little by little, allowing to refresh the air. " In Sicily, porous terracotta tiles are sprinkled with water to cool the interior of houses. In reference to traditional techniques, which use natural materials, I wanted to reproduce this phenomenon in an air cooler, on a domestic scale, thanks to a porous material. The final object is a natural limestone air cooler. It is crossed by water, then evaporated on the surface of the rock. The object consists of several slats, allowing to size the object and therefore the cooling capacity.
The third object uses the heat emitted by the compost. Freshly cut hay heats up to around 150° F.
I decided to harness this energy, currently unused in the composting centers, to turn it into a low-temperature cooking oven. Together with a chef, we organized the first meal cooked using «brush energy». The food is vacuumed, then inserted into the oven in contact with the hot compost.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
In the countryside, I refined my sensitivity and learned to pay attention to natural elements. I observe, as a spectator, spontaneous manifestations of energy in our environment. The almost magical character of certain phenomena fascinates me; smoke escaping from a pile of brushwood , or the coolness in contact with a block of stone in the middle of summer. So much energy circulation in which we are permanently in contact, without paying attention.
Key objectives for inclusion
I'm betting on a slower, more measured, more understandable, and more essential experience of consuming energy.
Where some of my proposals could seem experimental, even anecdotal, when i started the projected, they appear to me, after the lockdown, as being totally feasible. Not with the aim of optimizing, or improving, but simply and humbly to give access to simple and available energies to whoever would like to use them
Innovative character
By using these low tech technologies, I do not pretend to innovate, but to seize ancient know-how, ancestral techniques, and recontextualise them in our period.
