Of and In the World

Of and in the world, Somerset house, London

“The world, as we perceive it, is our own invention.”

- Heinz von Foerster

Of and in the World is an inhabitable sculpture that conceptualizes our perception of the world as something unique and our own. A dynamic interplay of 1500 glass orbs construct a crystalline lattice that explores physics, optics, and our dynamic readings of space. The orbs use cosmological and celestial organizations of three offset spherical layers that interconnect each of the orbs in a dynamic equilibrium. The work creates sensorial experiences that magnify and invert the context through perceptual scanning collapsing the environment and its readings as a moment captured in the mind’s eye. Perceptually visitors to the sculpture will see it anew as it would mirror, magnify and collapse through optics and illumination its environment.

The sculpture is further heightened through its siting in a reflection pool that utilizes the existing fountain to create an experience as if walking on lily pads. Utilizing spherical packing this stepping-stone experience creates a further mirroring and optic interplay as a liquid mirror that furthers the day and night experience. The project is being engineered and designed as part of our artist residency at Somerset House. The project is being developed with AKT2 engineers who have assisted in examining the engineering dynamics of this unique glass lattice structure. The work in conception and realization is a construct of the mind, demonstrating what one sees is truly their own.