Seismic Stone Mouvement Foundation


Seismic Stone Mouvement Foundation (2012) by Honoré d'O

About the artwork

Laying the first stone is the symbolic act by which the construction work of a new building officially begins. For th first stone of New Zebra the artist Honoré d 'O was asked to create an artistic intervention. Honoré d 'O opted to integrate this stone not in a fixed but instead in a loose way into the building.

Like a seismographic eye ditto principle, this loose, symbolic first stone offers a glimpse at the universe of Honoré d 'O. The stone is hollow, and lays on a loose surface, that moves when it is touched. The black round 'marble' inside symbolizes not only the pearl in which the universe could be reflected, but also the (third) eye representing the acts of watching and being watched. A red light is flashing continuously, thus suggesting to be a security camera. To this is attached a glass marble, which contrasts with the black pearl and thus emphasizes the link between the visible and the invisible, between revelation and concealment. The polystyrene beads contrast with the tangibility and the weight of the marble. They typify the weightlessness and antimatter, as well as the desire of Honoré d 'O not to consider his artwork as a simple object but to see it as a variable, living 'organism', through which established facts are reversed.

In this work, that Honoré d 'O has designed especially for New Zebra, the (invisibility of) technology in the society we live in today goes hand in hand with the mythology of the wit and its relationship with the cosmos.

About the artist

image Honoré d 'O, ° 1961, Oudenaarde, Belgium
Lives and works in Ghent, Belgium

Education:
1978-1983: Higher institute for visual arts Sint-Lucas, Ghent, Belgium: Architecture

The work of Honoré d' O (° 1961, Oudenaarde as Raf Van Ommeslaeghe and ° 1984 Ghent as Honoré d' O) is plastic and dynamic. The strong connection between ethics and aesthetics is one of the central motifs. He works with the idea of different ways, with diverging directions, which eventually have one common goal: the freedom to do and say what they want. This idea has less to do with the admiration for technology or a well-constructed work, but offers a poetic vision of the world, as well serious as humorous.

Honoré d 'O uses different methodologies, but always simple and existing objects: PVC pipes, stones, videos, cans, wires, ... This unusual blend makes paradoxically a closer connection with nature and its forces. Visitors sometimes get assigned an active role, in which they must finish the work and become part of it. To do so, they have to activate a noise or move an object. Partly for this reason, there is no one-sided interpretation. There is nothing absolute in Honoré's work, it's never going to be a fait accompli.