Artist's Studio, England

EVOLUTION 1. First View "a chain of coincidences, governed by geometry" HEIGHT 6FT ( 180CMS) STAINLESS STEEL 1997

After completing the sculpture LIFE in which I tried to depict my ideas about Replicators as a sphere of rhombuses, the next step was to try and create out of the same forms a symbolic sculpture for EVOLUTION.

I think of all Evolution as a chain of coincidences.

When I put together the column of EVOLUTION, I marked one side of each diamond by painting it red, then assembled the column in an alternating format, so when the viewer walked around the sculpture, it would hopefully give a sense of changing combinations.

Artist's Studio, England

EVOLUTION 1. Second View HEIGHT 6FT ( 180CMS) STAINLESS STEEL 1997

When I had completed the Column, I realised that if this did represent a form of Life, the next step would be for "it" to break free from Mother Earth, become "a part of the environment of replicators". It could do this by rolling itself into a Circle, so creating a "front and back", while still maintaining its alternating colour combination. Such a form could be more stable, and could also replicate sideways to the original version.

Artist's Studio, England	EVOLUTION 2. Silver Side MAQUETTE STAINLESS STEEL 1997

On the 4th of December 1872 Charles Darwin wrote to Alpheus Hyatt at Harvard. In the letter he said: "after long reflection I can not avoid the conviction that no innate tendency to progressive development exists ". (The italics are mine.)

Ronnie Brown writes:

But perhaps there is a tendency to complexity, governed by the geometry of forms, and the laws of physics. This development also seems to evolve on the border between chaos and total stability, fed by energy, and allowing complex forms to evolve and interact.

 

Last modified 09/01/98.