what equals what
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By Ari Frankel
Monday, 07/28/2014
E=m is my first publicly installed sculpture. It follows a beautiful mystery of red lines sighted around Princeton University, presumably guiding absentminded Albert Einstein on his routes from office to lab to home. When I asked him about this, renowned theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson suggested "I do not know whether he always went the same way. But I know he always started at point A (the Institute) and ended at point B (his home)." And in a follow-up email, Dyson added "I will not spoil your vision with facts. Great myths do not need to be true".
Connecting those real or imaginary lines with Einstein's famous equation, I designed and constructed a floating/hovering gate/fence/gateway type sculpture with some of its lines more red than others; with a built-in interactivity where you can walk up to it and gently turn it, point it to any direction[s]; building your own equation, your own path, to follow or to ignore.
E=m can mean Einstein was magical; that we/life/nature are [all that] Matter; that everyone is responsible for the equations they construct and follow. The length of the sculpture equals Einstein's height (5'9") and its width was calculated to create a golden rectangle, following ancient ratios of magic/perfect Divina Proportione.
The piece is secured above the ground but is too delicate to stand or sit on, so please be gentle with it, if you turn it. E=m projects differently from afar (including its changing shadows, and surprise turns in the wind) and holds some details to be discovered close-up. For example, whose notes and calculation entries are those scribbled on the lacquered pages glued around the small under-base square of the work?
Here is a short "the making of" video: http://youtu.be/crzPnFy7ln0