Matisse Vrignaud & Lundja Medjoub

Les Horloges à Feu
A contemporary reinterpretation of the elementary principle of fire clocks ; medieval instruments of imperfect measurement ; which already suggested a subjective and fluctuating perception of time. Here, combustion becomes movement, rhythm, and sound, revealing a moment that consumes and transforms itself.
This series of acoustic objects uses flame as the triggering principle of sound. Fire does not measure time precisely: it renders it perceptible, sensory, unstable. These are clocks in which exactitude matters less than experience ; not instruments of measurement, but objects of contemplation, surprise, and meditation. Time here is not counted; it is lived.
Conceived from surplus components sourced from a brass foundry, each piece reinterprets a principle of time measurement. The Metronome is a pendulum formed of two candles fixed back to back: the imbalance of combustion between the two flames sets the system in oscillation, and with each beat, a ball strikes a resonant receptacle placed at the centre. The Hourglass rests on a horizontal candle that heats a brass plate until a few drops of scented water deposited on its surface begin to shimmer, then evaporate. The Gong, finally, imprisons balls and chains within the wax of two vertical candles: as they burn down, these are released into a resonant receptacle and against a thin cymbal, producing sounds whose timing remains wholly unpredictable.