ASTRARIUM
A MODEL OF A GRAIN OF UNIVERSE
Astrarium (November 2017- June 2018) was conceived on commission as the cover of one of the music albums of a band called ZERO CALL©. The idea behind this work commission was to depict a scene set in basement, where an inventor fell victim of his own creature to the point of ignoring the natural light; the invention was conceived to represent a model able to explain the universe and, more specifically, the ‘Astrario’ of Giovanni Dondi (XIV century), which was a heptagonal-based medieval clock which allowed to locate the once-known position of planets compared to the Earth; the location of the basement is inspired instead to the Chillon Castle in Switzerland, built both on rocks and pillars.
THE CONCEPTION
In Lorenzo Zangheri’s mind, the idea soon started to be challenging. What came next was an elaboration that lasted more than eight months of work. Over the months, the work turned into a real mechanical project, becoming at the same time a pure allegory of all the prototypes men have been building over the centuries to illustrate the universe; all of these attempts to create models able to explain nature and its laws demonstrate how men can only be vulgar imitators.
The artist based on Dondi’s studies on the clock, de-engineerized it and understood its systems in order to be able to redesign that (considerably simplified) upside down in an ‘expanded’ way. By using digital supports to verify alignments, rotation radius, pendulum oscillation, and – at the same time – the absence of interferences amid pieces, Lorenzo Zangheri reinvented a destructured Astrarium where men take part in that as a motor.
The artwork was adopted as the cover of the album “Fears and Dreams of Living Machines” by the music band ZERO CALL©, which will be released in October 2018.
ITS FUNCTIONING
– The man initiates the daisy-chained pendulums
– Pendulums, linked to an anchor escapement system, trigger the movement to the “year wheel” which works as the main transmission gear
– The year wheel, linked to all the others as well (one for each vaults), triggers the movement of the horizontal wheel, which represents ‘the orbits’ of heavenly bodies.
– The horizontal wheel is connected to support hanging a sphere, which is the model of a heavenly body
– The sphere will rotate on an on-the-ground platform which is divided into 12 sectors, one for each month, locating the position of the planet compared to the Earth (the center of rotation); in the case of the planet has one or more satellites (smaller spheres), the system features a double rotation congruous with the main one.