Wood, bamboo, brass, cardboard, found objects
2010
This sculpture is a hand-built machine inspired by orreries — ancient horological and cosmological curiosities which used turning components to represent the movements of heavenly bodies. These elements from the history of astronomy are used to spin curving, organic sails representing the beauty we are used to seeing in the purely natural world. Here, the natural and man-made worlds are married in movement. 'Cosmos Mesh' melds artificial and organic contrivances into an almost-integrated, almost-smoothly functioning totality; jumps in its mechanical flow have the effect of foregrounding the actual interfusion of elements that is there.
The mechanical core is a set of hand-made gears built of cardboard and bamboo, all sealed with an organic-looking resin. This is set on a wooden base. Emerging from this are a set of sails made from colour lino prints representing leaves. Turning a handle sets the machinery in motion, causing the sails to rotate around the work and each other.
A clockwork mechanism of wheels and pinions, revolving on their fixed and turning arbors, plays with the organic roots of its terminology to restore mechanism to its natural origins. The clockwork machine is roughly constructed of cardboard and bamboo sealed with organic, dripping coatings; when turned by the viewer, these turn around, within, and amongst each other with a smoothness and grace that seems unlikely given their appearance. As a reprise of 18C devices built to display the revolutions of heavenly bodies, this awkward and gracile machine takes the heavens back to earth with a nod to ecology and the interconnection of all things in the world we inhabit.
Conceptual inspiration comes primarily from the mobiles of Alexander Calder and eighteenth-century clockwork models of the solar system.
The mechanical core is a set of hand-made gears built of cardboard and bamboo, all sealed with an organic-looking resin. This is set on a wooden base. Emerging from this are a set of sails made from colour lino prints representing leaves. Turning a handle sets the machinery in motion, causing the sails to rotate around the work and each other.
A clockwork mechanism of wheels and pinions, revolving on their fixed and turning arbors, plays with the organic roots of its terminology to restore mechanism to its natural origins. The clockwork machine is roughly constructed of cardboard and bamboo sealed with organic, dripping coatings; when turned by the viewer, these turn around, within, and amongst each other with a smoothness and grace that seems unlikely given their appearance. As a reprise of 18C devices built to display the revolutions of heavenly bodies, this awkward and gracile machine takes the heavens back to earth with a nod to ecology and the interconnection of all things in the world we inhabit.
Conceptual inspiration comes primarily from the mobiles of Alexander Calder and eighteenth-century clockwork models of the solar system.
In exhibition, it was the kids who immediately overcame the barrier to touching the artwork; they intuited from the inviting handle that it was meant to be interacted with, and it drew them into play.
