Zimoun
2 prepared DC-Motors, Cotton Balls, Cardboard Boxes 16.5 x 12 x 5 cm

In 2 prepared DC-Motors, Cotton Balls, Cardboard Boxes 16.5 × 12 × 5 cm (2013) Zimoun uses wire-reinforced adhesive tape to connect two smaller cardboard boxes and a portable headphone to form a participatory kinetic sound object. Like the basic unit in 1 Prepared DC-Motor (2012), the cardboard boxes serve as sound bodies for cotton balls that beat against their surfaces by means of DC-motors. When the viewers put on the headphones and use the toggle switch to turn them on, their ears take on the role of an amplifier, allowing the a-rhythmic pounding to immerse them in a sound world that shuts out any other external noise.
Zimoun himself speaks of the “primitive complexity” of his works, a polarity, which becomes apparent even in the smallest unit of the individual speaker. The works’ simple functional materials are assembled by hand in a manner that reflects the unique and always slightly changing cloud of sound that spreads out from around the box. With two rhythms in the headphones this effect is doubled, as it is multiplied many times over in the installations, where hundreds of these basic units, in a kind of minimalism to the power of two, together create an ever unique, walk-in sound space.
The minimalist grace and intrinsic magic of his kinetic sound spaces is reminiscent of the artist Pe Lang, whose work is also represented in the collection of the HeK, and with whom Zimoun collaborated between 2004 and 2008.
(Text: Bettina Back)