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Vortex Street

When air or water passes an object, at certain speeds of the flow, an oscillation can occur or frequency arise, which is called Von Kármàn's vortex street. (von Kármán vortex street is a phenomenon in fluid mechanics and consists of a repeating pattern of turbulent, recirculating eddies that form behind an object in the direction of the flow. The phenomenon is due to an unsteady flow separation. The phenomenon was named after the engineer Theodore von Kármán. Wikipedia)

As a starting point, a photo of an experiment from the 1930s has been used.

The plaster machine is the working name of the machine I built to make this vortex street three-dimensional. One of the limitations of the assignment was that I was not allowed to do some moving objects in the public art mission. I then thought it was interesting to make a moving artmachine as a tool which is used to make the artwork, which paradoxically was about movement in air and water. I had dealt with this concept in previous installations.

The machine is a kind of "snow machine", which snowed plaster and water vapor on a laser cut silhouette of the vortex street. In this way the height or depth of the relief was created with the force of gravity and the capillary force of the plaster. The plaster hardened in contact with the water mist. In this way, a natural topography was created in the vortex street. The result was a piece of "nature" according to the principle of sedimentary rocks

The plaster original was then transferred to cast bronze and placed on a wall at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm 1995.

© 2023 by Olov Tällström AB

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