Chorus: Did you perhaps go further than you have told us?
Prometheus: I caused mortals to cease foreseeing doom.
Chorus: What cure did you provide them with against that sickness?
Prometheus: I placed in them blind hopes.
The 4 panels called Crowd 1, 2, 3 and 4, which make up the panels of the box structure for The Box, describe an epiphany of group behaviour which came to mind on a visit to Florence in 2010.
Crowds, seem to have a life of their own, unstoppable, impersonal, impulsive, energetic, large numbers of people moving together in one direction with intent, dictated by some unseen force. Images of these impressions were drawn, from photo's taken on the day.
Later these drawings were refined in my studio and cut out of sheets of stainless steel. The panels were then folded and became the sides of the box.
The 6 panels, making up the box, have a mirrored surface on the inside and provide reflections of the interior.
The interior space also contains a sculpture, representing nature and humanity, a metaphor for the idea we are nature and nature is us, linked in every way. What is one is also the other, discovering nature as ourselves has found our place as participants, not as an unconnected force. Humanity is represented by the brain and the tree is nature. The foliage of the tree is made up of figures and the figures are the tree.
The tree is placed on top of the brain and the combination of these 2 forms is the centre piece of the installation.
The reflections, evident in the installation, equate with the infinite complexities of hereditary values of human genetics. Because of the nature of the box and the reflections it provides, the effect is an entrancing distanced view of the interior of the box and the sculpture, providing a complex and engaging "infinity" experience.
Stainless steel panels, 2 mm 304 grade no 8 polish one side, make up the box structure.
The sculpture, inside the box, is made from 2 mm, 3-D printed resin, scanned from an original carved form and painted with a virtual chrome process.
Size. Height: 2 meters (including the supporting structure), Length: 2 meters, Width: 1.2 meters.
Some years ago I had an exhibition called Images in the mirror. This was followed by the making of an installation sculpture called When Darkness Ends which was never completed. It's main motive was the effect of mirrors and mirror images, but the content came from the following idea.:
I feel most of us live for most of our lives in darkness. As someone said a long time ago. humanity, all of us, live in a place that can best be described as a dark muddy pool, swimming around near the bottom in the slime. But every now and then one of us surfaces for some reason, perhaps as the result of a flash of insight and "catches sight of the light". A flash of blinding, beautiful light, before going down again. Perhaps some remain in the light.
This work When Darkness Ends became part of The Box.
"The transition from the usual way of perceiving an individual thing to the perception of it's informing idea occurs abruptly (states Schopenhauer). When the act of cognition is released from the service of the will". Or as James Joyce formulating the same insight in his discussion of the moment of aesthetic arrest in the contemplation of an object states, "You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing".
Adrian
