MAHOUCLETÁ, Kinetic Installation

On the Fallas 2020, the most popular festival in the Valencian Community and one of the most important events in the Spanish territory, Vitamin designed an interactive kinetic installation named Mahoucletá for Mahou, a beer brand.

Mahou created the Casal Cinco Estrellas, an initiative with an urban and artistic touch to join the Fallas 2020. This experience was carried out at the Centre del Carme or CCCC, located in the old Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Valencia, founded in 1281 in what we know today as the Carmen neighborhood. At the same time it was declared a National Historical-Artistic Monument in 1983, later the Valencian Generalitat turned it into the headquarters of the Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community and is currently the CCCC, a contemporary culture center.

Mahou’s Casal Cinco Estrellas is an inviting proposal to experience the Fallas in a different, creative and youthful way in the center of Valencia. Among the activities, in an innovative program related to the Fallas, always from an artistic and urban point of view, Vitamin is invited to participate creating an unique artistic installation mixing art, technology and culture.

The Mahoucletá installation is inspired by a mascletá, a set of very loud and rhythmic pyrotechnic shots linked by wicks in lines that are usually held at medium height hanging on ropes. The purpose of a mascletá is to stimulate the body through rhythmic noises, considered musical and the visual explosion accompanied by flashes of color and gunpowder smoke. Every march, during the Fallas, 1 mascletá is performed every day throughout the month in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, in addition to many others in specific events.

Vitamin with Maslow, the creative agency in charge of the project idea and concept, used real data from the mascletá as a starting point to create the Mahoucletá, for example, the 120kg of firecracker powder were replaced by 120 Mahou bottles, together we proposed to create a musical base with the sounds of firecrackers taking off and exploding, the assembly of a mascletá inspired the vertical structure created for the installation, lighting bulbs very similar to the ones used in the Fallas were placed and finally real smoke was included to simulate gunpowder.

In this case, a wooden structure similar to bleachers was built, with iron arches from which 120 motorized systems were hanged, connected by wire to the bases that were opening devices for the bottles. A choreographed programming activated the launch of wooden cubes that in turn collided with metal bottle openers and thus opened 120 Mahou caps.

Vitamin used the actual sound of the motorized system to symbolize the rhythmic noises of a real mascletá. From the engine starting, the servo’s movement, the opening of the wooden box, then the cube sliding and colliding with the metal beer opener until finally, the opening of the bottle cap, thus creating a reinterpretation with an urban touch, offering an innovative visual and sound installation, replacing the traditional firecrackers with the sound of the artistic installation, synchronized with the musical base created by noiz.es and the valencian duo Mueveloreina.

For the creation of the motorized devices, first Vitamin built 5 wooden prototypes by hand in which the position of the bottle, the launch height of the cubes were varied, and different metal openers were also tested until reaching the final prototype that was reproduced in 120 units in a traditional way with varied heights.

The Mahoucletá was also handled manually, once the installation was triggered through a mobile APP connected to the servo engines, everything was returned to its original place manually, putting the cubes inside the 120 boxes, returning to the initial position each servo and replacing the Mahou bottles with new ones to be opened again.

The Mahoucletá, inside the Casal Cinco Estrellas opened on march 7, 2020 with special guests, the press, artists and Mahou fans. The event was planned to be held again during the 4 main days of the Fallas festivities but, like all the Fallas acts in Valencia city, it was canceled following recommendations of the Ministry of Health. Subsequently, Spain activated the state of alarm on march 14 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Vitamin with the Mahoucletá is expected to return to celebrate the next fallas.