Liquid Solid [2015]

Video installation: 2015, Full HD, 1920x1080, 18'09" (loop)

Liquid Solid is a collaborative project between Nicky Assmann and Joris Strijbos in which they explore the cinematic qualities of a freezing soap film. It came forth after attending the Ars BioArctica residency at the Biological Research Center in the sub-Arctic Region of Finland. During this residency they shot footage of the freezing process of soap films and made recordings with self build VLF antennas to pick up the electro magnetic signals from the Aurora Borealis, the Northern lights. The footage and recordings functioned as the basis for the film.

The residency has an emphasis on the Arctic environment and art and science collaboration and deals with the impressions of the sub-arctic, the melting ice and changing surroundings. Since weather conditions like wind and temperature varied each day, with temperatures ranging from minus 6 to minus 25 degrees Celsius, the freezing process of the soap film differed in behaviour and appearance during their filming process.

The video installation Liquid Solid is an eighteen-minute-long film about the freezing process of a soap film. Soap only freezes at very low temperatures, because the water remains protected by the soap acids for a very long time. Within a number of minutes, the colourful soap slowly sinks down in the film of soap, until a vacuum of a very thin layer of water remains, in which frozen crystals whirl round. The constantly shifting iridescent quality of the liquid soap membrane disappears as it freezes, leaving a solid, crystallized colourless surface. Only at a very low temperature, an accelerated freezing process occurs, during which ice crystals transform into complex fractal-like patterns. This transformation into a frozen landscape not only highlights the physical state change but also reflects the ephemeral nature of memory, time & environmental change.

For the film Strijbos and Assmann composed a soundscore with a mixture of soundscapes, ranging from singing whales, recordings with self-made instruments, such as VLF antennas recording the Northern lights and monochords played with electromagnets.

Below a trailer from the video installation of Liquid Solid

Liquid Solid was made possible with the generous support of:
Creative Industries Fund NL, Gemeente Rotterdam, The Finnish Society of Bioart

Liquid Solid is the final chapter in the triptych Assmann made on soap film, from which the monumental soap film installation Solace was the first part and soap film apparatus Solaris the second chapter.