|
Möbius Egg I - 2013 [sold]
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Height: 24" Width: 30". Depth: 4" supported by a 25mm stainless steel rod from a hidden concrete foundation. The outline of the egg is an example of a Euclidean four point compass and straight edge egg construction. Many more such constructions are to be found in Robert Dixon’s marvellous book Mathographics (1). The outline of both the egg and the egg shape cut out from it are Euclidean constructions of my own. The twisting nature of the inside of the egg owes much to the mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius who first examined this strange form in the nineteenth century and gave us the Möbius strip. Take a strip of paper, twist it through 180°, turn it round into a torus and glue it together. Were you to trace a line along the middle of the strip, you would find that this strip of paper, which appears to have two surfaces, has in fact got only one continuous surface. Similarly, the Möbius strip has only one edge, not two as one might suppose. The Möbius strip is a conundrum – what are the implications of warping a plane through three dimensions to our understanding of planes and dimensions? This series of Möbius sculptures of mine explores the conundrum further by starting to examine similar warpings of three dimensional cross-sections through space. The cross-section of Möbius Egg I’s torus varies from a rectangle at the bottom to a horizontal diamond at the top. The egg has only one continuous surface and one continuous edge. Because of the asymmetrical positioning of the cut-out egg inside the egg, the twisting nature of the design results in subtly different transformations occurring on each face of the sculpture, so the sculpture is different when viewed from the back to when viewed from the front. |
||
|
||
|
(1) DIXON, R. 1987. Mathographics. Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, UK. This book was published again by Dover Publicatios, Inc., New York, in 1991. |
||
|
To read more about Möbius strips and solids, and to see four short video demonstrations of their properties, click the images below to follow the link: 
|