Domesticated Stone

Photographs by Julie Brugier. This work by Julie Brugier grew out of a collaboration with the Mineralogy Museum of Mines Paris. Pierre domestiquée brings to light the concrete, sensory fabric of the contemporary world by starting from one of its fundamental resources: minerals — their extraction, their industrial transformation, and their massive presence in everyday objects.

The installation lets the stones speak differently, underlining their aesthetic qualities as much as their technical ones. To that end, several quartz specimens from the collection of the Mineralogy Museum at MINES ParisTech are shown here. Quartz is an extraordinarily rich resource with varied physical and chemical properties. From quartz comes the silicon used on a massive scale in electronic components; from quartz too come stoneware (porcelain stoneware) and glass.

Quartz is found in a very large number of the objects of our daily lives, from the watch to the bathroom tile by way of the remote control. Through its piezoelectric qualities it is today a promising source of renewable energy. Quartz bears witness to the physical and intellectual domestication of the mineral world that this project brings out — in its inventive aspects as much as in its controversies, which are often passed over in silence.

Mining is also the source of a multitude of human conflicts and environmental damage. Moreover, the overexploitation of these resources for an ever-growing production of objects is a heavy threat that cannot be neglected. So the installation Pierre domestiquée seeks to sublimate the physical and aesthetic qualities of stones, whether their capacity to mark time, their piezoelectric effect, or the way they handle light.

As visitors approach, the display stands come alive, staging the rocks on show. The interactive design of the installation invites the visitor to look attentively and sensitively at a resource that is most often invisible, though very present in our everyday environment. A project carried out in collaboration with Colin Bouvry, electronics designer and developer, and with the technical help of the EnsAD workshops and of the hackerspace Le Jack.