Because of Prairie Grass

2019

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An expanse of prairie grass moving to gentle wind is hypnotic. Single grasses, moving in their millions, affect one another to create complex waves across the space and time of the prairie. A single blade of prairie grass bends to a breeze, but in the process alters the breeze for its neighbors. They, in turn, do the same. The larger emergent beauty is not attributable to any single blade of grass, but requires the contributions of each to exist.

I wanted to focus on small, singular interactions propagating to create something bigger. This sculpture is an abstraction of additive small interactions, inspired by prairie grass. Rather than a breeze, the underlying motive force is rotational. Rotational forces cause paired left and right elements to interact. Differences in left and right rotational speed slowly change the interactive properties of the elements, and the emergent complex wave pattern that results.

 

The mathematics of the sculpture design turned into a trigonometry festival. A great many similar trigonometric equations layer to give the time and space locations of all of the visual elements of the piece. The combined, layered equations become quite complex, but continue to generate the underlying sinusoidal motions of the piece that slowly evolve. The entire cycle completes and begins again in 31.05 minutes.

The motions of the left and right elements inform and change each other, creating a larger pattern beyond the reach of any element acting alone. Like society, sometimes?