A feather’s responsiveness is staged against the rigidity of a metal workshop tool.
Kinetic mixed-media sculpture · 2011
Do You Dream About Me?
A kinetic mixed-media sculpture in which a small fan keeps a single feather in gentle motion, suspending softness within an exposed mechanical apparatus.
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Project typeArtwork · Installation / environment · Sculpture
ThemesMaterials & making · Speculative & critical design
FormKinetic mixed-media sculpture
Developed2011
MaterialsFeather · third hand · fan · electronics
PresentedExcusa Argumental · MAC A Coruña
01 · Proposition
A machine performs a fragile dream
Do You Dream About Me? brings an industrial holding tool and a delicate feather into a small, persistent choreography.
A feather is gripped by the articulated clips of a metal third hand—the workshop tool normally used to hold components during soldering. A small electric fan directs a continuous current of air toward it, producing a subtle movement that appears vulnerable, repetitive and unexpectedly alive.
The mechanism remains fully exposed. Rather than disguising the electronics, the sculpture sets the cold precision of the stand, clips, wires and fan against the feather’s colour, softness and responsiveness. The title leaves the relationship unresolved: the apparatus may be animating the feather, attending to it, or projecting a dream of life onto matter.
Video documentation
Watch the feather move
02 · Experience
Hold, breathe, repeat
- 01
Hold
The articulated third hand grips the feather and fixes its base within an exposed workshop apparatus.
- 02
Breathe
A small electric fan produces a steady current of air that animates the soft material.
- 03
Repeat
The feather’s minute, continuous movement turns a simple mechanism into a persistent living-like gesture.
03 · Reflection
Animation without concealment
The sculpture creates a sense of life while refusing the illusion of an autonomous organism: every support, wire and mechanism remains visible.
Its tension lies in the unequal encounter between materials. The third hand immobilises the feather while the fan continually disturbs it; control and movement happen at once. Because the action is so slight, attention shifts from technological spectacle to the feather’s changing contour and the air that acts upon it. The work makes a modest mechanical loop feel intimate and ambiguous, asking what viewers project onto matter when it begins to move.
An invisible current becomes legible through the feather’s continuous movement.
The exposed mechanism remains visibly technical while producing a fragile impression of life.
Exhibition history
Selected presentations
Excusa Argumental · 22 January–15 March
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural Fenosa (MAC)
A Coruña, Spain
Credits & archive
Project record
- Concept, sculpture and electronics
- Ricardo O’Nascimento
