Tuning for Uncle Walter

2018

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If you have ever successfully adjusted rabbit ears, you remember Walter Cronkite. “Uncle Walter”, on the CBS Evening News, was called “the most trusted man in America” during the 1960s and 70s. It was a view shared by almost all of us. Cronkite served up truth, night after night, with the signature closing, “And that’s the way it is…”

 

This sculpture exists because, as an American, I miss having a shared Uncle Walter to an almost inexpressible degree. The rabbit ears theme is an icon of his time. Adjusting a rabbit ears antenna was a nightly ritual of angle and direction, banishing snow and ghosts for a crisp image in black and white, finding the state of the world that day, shared by all of us.

 

Each of the two rabbit ears, if isolated, would swing in a fixed period. However, gearing forces the two ears to swing with the same rotation rate but in opposite directions.

 

From the reference frame of the pair, the period of the two is always exactly balanced. A third pendulum, in turn, swings the system of the paired ears. From the combined, fixed reference frame, the movement of the ears becomes complex, like our search for objective truth as we tune for the news.