The increasing volume and unprecedented rate of new discoveries in every aspect of the world around us is creating completely new horizons for human comprehension. Whether these new perceptual shifts are scientific, cultural, political, or personal, this has created a need to modify our personal and public belief systems as we search for new meaning within new contexts. Belief in any new information forms new relationships and connections within our minds and therefore creates a paradigm shift, often so minor as to go unnoticed. As we absorb these changes, the implications they pose moves through us personally, as well as collectively, in an increasingly chaotic pattern. In the study of dynamical systems that change through time, chaos theory states that seemingly small changes in a sequence of events can have drastic consequences as that chain of events progresses. For example, the ‘Butterfly Effect’ shows that even infinitesimally small variations in the initial condition of a dynamic system can have large consequences as the system evolves. Therefore, a flap of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world could initiate a chain of events that causes a tornado in a different part of the world.
With this work, I am interested in extrapolating from what chaos theory has shown about the ‘Butterfly Effect’ and using it to examine how our perceptions of our surroundings are continually being modified as time evolves. Seemingly small events in our experiences of being alive can manifest themselves in unknown and unpredictable ways. In this work, each turn, each angle, and each junction effect all subsequent directions in these oscillating shapes. Each part plays a role in the form of the whole, but more importantly, each part defines the direction of the whole. Likewise, all single moments, even the infinitesimally small moments in our experience of being alive build to continually modify our individual perception of our known and unknown surroundings.
Oscillation (oblique, compact, folding, 55)
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
20″ x 21″ x 23″
Oscillation (super-compact, oblique, 25)
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
10″ x 10″ x 10″
Brian Harper: Oscillations (Installation View), Land of Tomorrow (LOT) Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky
Oscillation (inverted, closed, 236)
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
5 1/2′ x 5 1/2′ x 18″
Oscillation (linear, folded, 84)
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
105″ x 7″ x 5″
Oscillation (compact, strange, 150)
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
105″ x 6″ x 6″
Oscillations (folding, 23)
17in x 19in x 47in
ceramic, epoxy, pigment
Oscillations (compact, 24)
34″ x 16″ x 17″
ceramic, epoxy, pigment