MDF column, acrylic bowl, water, light, four sub-speakers, sinus sound waves, electronics
Dimensions variable


Finnbogi Pétursson uses a confined trap made of water and light. Confinement is a spatial term. It defines limits and boundaries between where one substance ends and another one starts. When the sinusoids traverse the aquatic medium they engage it, attempting to transcribe their rhythm on its flexible surface. But the water is not as free flowing as its beguiler. Indeed it is limited and confined by its vessel and must submit to its "carcan". Thus a phase gets selected and the water will accommodate itself into a spatial pattern being the marriage of the vessel that confines it and the sound that tries to free it. Light, also a sinusoidal wave, is then used to further project the fruit of this union back into the immateriality of lights and shadows that we can contemplate, like glimpses of perfect shapes in Plato's cave. In this way Pétursson has captured a spatio-temporal building block which he can use to creatively elaborate a sculpture that both lives in space and time, is both confined and pervasive, is static yet always moving. We live in a world filled with a cacophony of sounds and a jumble of spaces, both confined and open. The sum total of the interaction between these two defines our everyday experience. In his work Pétursson has singled out and distilled this interaction to its purest form, allowing us to reflect on this basic component of our existence. – Kjartan Pierre Emilsson


*1959 in Reykjavik, Iceland | Living and working in Iceland