Artist's Studio, England

LIFE

HEIGHT 15 INCHES (40CM)
POLISHED STAINLESS STEEL
1996

"the miracle of replication"

 

Animation link

Like all children, I was fascinated by snowflakes, and this naturally lead to crystals. I made a wooden copy of a cubic pyrite crystal from Spain, in an attempt to understand and feel the growth of the structure.

This lead to my thinking about a basic shape that could multiply and change in form. I began with half of a rhombus of Fertility, which could grow into a hexagram, and then into a hexagon.

Imagine a sheet of these hexagons can roll up into a ball, as shown in the sculpture. For me it now resembles a living creature, such as a Radiolarian, and has become LIFE.

Radiolarian

 

This beautiful structure is the "skeleton" of a single-celled organism called a radiolarian. Radiolarians average around 0.1 - 0.2 mm in diameter and are not easily detectable in the field. Their "skeletons" are silica-based.

They live in large quantities as part of the ocean's plankton. When the radiolarian dies, it's shell sinks to the bottom. After millions of years of radiolarian shells "raining down" on the sea floor, they accumulate in great quantities. Much of the sea floor of the deep oceans is covered with this radiolarian "ooze".

 

Courtesy of Columbia University, New York.


© Mathematics and Knots/ Edition Limitee 1996 - 2002
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