For some years now, Elias Crespin organizes points, lines and planes in space. While stationary, his suspended sculptures offer the spectator as many forms as there are points of view in the environment in which they are presented. Numerically controlled, they rearrange themselves when the primitive forms that compose them move simultaneously, independently from one another. Elias recalls the time spent in his grandmother´s studio, the Venezuelan kinetic artist Gego, as well as the time when, while looking at a virtual cube by Jesus Rafael Soto, he said to himself: “It would be great if it moved.” It was some years later that this computer engineer wrote the first algorithms that literally give life to his sculptures. Light is also an essential component in Elias Crespin’s work as it allows the spectators to observe the work itself as well as the shadows it projects. Thus, in the space of the plane that constitutes the mural support, the rearrangement of lines and curves evokes both the perspective drawings of the Renaissance humanists and the polygonal meshes generated by today´s computers. And when he moves from the aesthetics of a filament to that of a surface, it is a way to play with the colors and transparencies of the colored materials he suspends in space. Crespin has conceived his application programs in the same way a painter mixes colors and he loves to say that he “paints in space.” Finally, the movement in his work symbolizes the natural or the living. Whether metal rods or Plexiglas sheets, when animated, they may suggest either a wave or a caterpillar. Abstract when inert, once the numerically controlled Crespin mobiles are activated, they engage our imagination. We project both the form of our desires and that of our fears onto them, yet we recognize that the slow pace of their movement, sometimes at the limit of our perception, calms us. Elias Crespin’s pieces encourage meditation, whether our concentration focuses on the parts or on the whole, not associated with any self-representation. When the sense of sight seems to escape the mind’s control, in that state of letting go, the hypnotic experience contributes to the aesthetic experience. Dominique Moulon, The hypnotic experience, April 2010. Association Ars Longa 104 rue d’Aubervilliers 75019 Paris, France www.arslonga.fr
