The Fine, Fractal Line Between Heaven and Earth I had the idea for this piece while reading the Quran a few years ago. (I am trying to read all of the religious classics.) The book often refers to the “line between Heaven and Earth”. I have serious doubts that such a literal line exists- but I did begin wondering what such a line would look like. I imagined it being extremely complex; fractal. It would also have to possess this complexity in at least three dimensions, not just one (a line) or two (a plane). This would give it a very, very complicated shape. I also imagined it in constant motion, ever shifting. On top of all this, it would likely be invisible to us--after all, no one has actually seen such a thing. The only metaphor that I could visualize was turbulence, which is an extremely complex mathematical phenomenon. Hence, this piece: air, blown smoothly from the fan, is distorted into nearly infinite varieties of intricate, constantly altering shapes when moving through the brass paddles. The “art” in this piece is not in the ebony base or brass towers, but in the continuous, unpredictable and endlessly complex changes in shape that the blowing air is making between those towers. They are just as real as the ebony and brass. You can feel them there--you just aren’t able to see them. |
