Shalese Fitzgerald

Statement

Imperfect Mobile explores alternative ways to achieve tensegrity’s underlying principle of balance through tension and compression. Using a simple weight to replace the downward force of a cable allows for a range of motion. As with the minimalist three downward cable approach, balancing involves a narrow range of tolerances. Unlike static design, centering another mass can be achieved in multiple ways. With the varying ranges of cable lengths that will balance the system instead of toppling it, this piece also allows for the interactive exploration of white noise and ill-conditioned systems. Still to be explored are the limits where counterbalance fails in practice. So far, a triply suspended sculpture is still surviving my cat.

Artworks

Imperfect Mobile is an expansion of the popular floating tables that introduces white noise and a visual exploration of ill conditioned systems. Edges are of proportions familiar to the cube, tetrahedral, octahedral set of nested Platonic solids. The edges themselves are not perfect nor are the lengths of the cables. Balance can be found in the system through a series of turnbuckles. Likewise, a slight change in a turnbuckle can collapse the system.