Panamarenko
(c)image: Wim Van Eesbeek
As part of this overall Journey to the Stars project, Panamarenko has explored the possibility of using magnetic forces to propel flying saucers beyond the Earth’s gravity. Since 1976, he has been seeking ways of flying through the cosmos
using existing magnetic fields. His space project was preceded by a substantial body of studies and thought experiments, which Panamarenko described in the article ‘To the Stars with Flying Saucers and Magnetic Forces’, published in the 1981 catalogue Struycken and Panamarenko. He also built the objects Gyro-efflux and Droma in
this period. They are electromagnetic sculptures in which a device consisting of discs, shafts, gears and coils lifts a small metal plate. The object Droma – derived from the Greek word dromos, meaning ‘fast pace’ – has two electric motors and a disc with magnets at the top, which revolves very fast about its axis. This magnetic rotor led to the construction in 1983 of Plumbite.