www.simonwhetham.co.uk
Residency at Ferme-Asile, Sion, Switzerland (click here to return to main project page)
Clutch of Clutches
During my first week of the residency one of the artists who has a permanent atelier space here, Pierre-Alain Zuber, kindly delivered a whole collection of motor devices, speakers, two gigantic printers and a whole host of other objects that were generously donated to the project by Pierre Veyser.
While going through the collection, I found a number of these electromagnetic clutches. When testing them with various voltages I found they only function with at least 12 volts and when they do they make a characteristic clicking sound. I discovered four almost identical looking clutches that when tested had a slightly different sound.
Lining them up it was clear that they should be presented this way, possibly with an LED inside the central hole. The LED lamp fits perfectly.
The box I have mounted them on was used to bring various components and tools with me from Marseille, but gently amplifies the sound of the clutches when they activate.
The video documents the clutches activating with a simple random Arduino programme. However I still need to modify this in some ways.