The Self-Isolation Residency 30th April 2020: Day 32

Exploring Sculpture No.3: 'Spirituality Levels', found objects, 2009, Antony Clarkson

Something a little different for this evening, my first foray into kinetic sculpture. This was afield that I had been considering experimenting with for a long time, I loved the idea of giving a piece of sculpture life and during this experiment phase of my career I was able to start to apply the principle to actual works. The first of these works was 'Spirituality Levels', quite a playful name for a playful piece. Like most of my experiments into this piece if is a hybrid essentially based around a clock mechanism. I will at this point state that I am not an engineer, I am an artist. To give a sculpture life I must take the beating heart from one entity to bring my 'creation' to life; very Frankensteinian! I don't have the know-how create an energy source from scratch. So what I started thinking about creating some thing of this nature I was naturally drawn towards clock mechanism.

Actually the starting process for this was just a little reversed of this in that I found the clocks that I would use in several kinetic sculpture experiments in pound shops, I immediately realised that they had potential, although what that potential would turn of to be I didn't realise at the time. during one of my many visits to the pound shops during this period; when you find a goldmine like these shops used to be to tend to keep going back for more, I also found some laser spirit levels for the same price. These also caught my imagination and found their way onto my work bench at the same time as one of the clocks. The ensuing surgery also included 'donor; parts for a biro, a wire coat-hanger  and a drawing pins.

The final piece not only has a semblance of life itself it also appears to be something  that could be use to monitor life. The barrel of the biro comes a rotating prism powered by the clock mechanism through which the laser light from the spirit levels is refracted across the wall above where the piece is secured with the drawing pins. The light creates an ever changing pattern on the wall as the scratches and flaws on the prism rotate within in, also picking out as it does all imperfections and blemishes of the wall surface. The final result as it ticks by is something reminiscent of an ECG or an ultrasound machine.  A semblance of life or a sensor of life.