delineation.

Earlier tonight, I tried out the magnet and razor blade setup. The idea is that there’s a thread that will go in between the gap. The thread is of a kite, and the kite will be hung from the ceiling. Just below the kite there will be a small fan providing artificial wind blowing the kites.

The magnet I use in this setup is Rare Earth (Neodymium) Magnet, 25 mm x 6 mm x 3.5 mm. It was not easy to find the razor blades as people only use type that goes with the plastic dispensable razor these days; but I finally could buy them from a local old-style barber shop, the Melbourne Barbershop. And, as though following the context of the project and referencing the biggest kingdom on earth in history, the razor blade says “Sheffield Special – made in Sheffield, England”.

It took me a while to set them up. My fingers were all covered in SuperGlue. It was impossible to use tweezers and scissors – they would snap immediately to the magnet and stop functioning.

At first, being faithful to my sketches, I only attached the thread to the middle of the magnet and the middle part of the razor blade, but it didn’t work. I figured they have to be really balanced. As one magnet seller has told me, if they’re not properly in grip they might be constantly in flux, so they might be moving each other in perpetuality.

How romantic.

After some tries with a few setups, finally I could get a setup to work – placing them vertically on the wall. Diagonal setup didn’t work – I guess gravity is an important aspect as well.

With this experience I brought the setup to something that’s more ‘real’.

I thought that as long as I have some kind of a plank above and below, it doesn’t matter that the middle is hollow. Like a window, for example (doors wouldn’t be suitable because there’s usually no bottom frame). I went out of my little studio to the Project Space, and worked on this setup using the window there.

It was quite difficult! I tried to hang the magnet exactly halfway down the window so that the razor blade would meet exactly halfway up. It didn’t work. The magnet kept attracting either corner of the razor blade, they just couldn’t be kept horizontally straight like the setup I had in my studio before.

I was discouraged. Maybe, I thought, it only could work within small distance. In my mind I was imagining having little windows with this setup and the kite’s thread going through these little windows. That could look good as well.

Or, I thought, perhaps the slanted setup could work as well – it looked like a guillotine somehow. I didn’t really like it, but was starting to consider it.

But then I thought, let’s try something else.

I put on another block of magnet at the bottom of the previous magnet (mind you, these magnets, they *snap* in place!), and pulled the threads for the magnets a bit down so that the magnets and the razor blade would meet a bit below the half of the window.

After slowly pulling the magnets’ threads down while leaving the razor blade attached to the magnets, I slowly pulled the razor blade down as well to form the gap.

Ah! Is it the weight? Is it the strength of the magnet? I don’t know. But this time it worked!

Now. That’s what you call happiness. Happiness is merely being able to setup a small block of magnet and a piece of razor blade and pull the razor blade away in such a way that it is still being attracted (and held in place) by the magnet, but leaving a small gap in between. That is happiness. Forget all I said about happiness in my previous posts.

For the moment, at least.

I’m leaving this setup there for one night. So far, a few hours after I put them together, it still seems fine and holding in place. It’s great. The razor blade looks like it’s a helium baloon, just floating in the air, colourless but joyful.

I guess especially because the Rare Earth Magnets don’t really look like magnets as we know it (the good ol’ Ferrite ones) … it kinda look like magic. Voodoo something levitation stuff. Well I’m quite used to seeing it now, but I wonder what people would think when they see this. Heheh.

Thanks to Zeno Wulia.