Seismograph

Blown, sculpted, assembled glass, motors, receipt rolls pens, magnets, hardware. Kinetic.
41”L / 35”W / 33”H
2006

The seismograph is based on Newton’s First Law of Physics (“Objects at rest tend to stay at rest...”). Weights are placed at the ends of three freely-moving arms, positioned along the X,Y, and Z axes of a central frame bolted to, ideally, bedrock. At the ends of the arms are placed a stylus, and below the stylus a slowly scrolling sheet of paper on a “helicorder”, which is also bolted to bedrock. In the event of an earthquake, the weights at the ends of the arms tend to “stay at rest”, while the entire seismograph moves up-down, left-to-right beneath the stylus and paper.

This piece was originally made for a show in San Francisco.