From Here to Babel

From here to Babel, Mild Steel, 

Cast Glass, mild steel, prints on wood 50x50x14cm

From here to Babel, a hexagonal steel structure was inspired by Borge’s  Library of Babel,  a linguistic model of the universe, with its endless hexagonal chambers.  The work imagined as a lost fragment of the library forms a travelogue. Four file-like draws hold images of journeys through landscape,  mind and the urban world. On opening, each of the four draws an electronic sensor triggers sound recordings of letters to Smithson to play.

Meandering Travels is recorded in two of the draws, telling of a journey to six sites whose path is etched into the waves of cast glass at the centre of the work. Embedded, within six adjacent mirrored surfaces at the centre of From here to Babel,  the smooth liquid surface is fragmented in the mirror reflection. What might be called a baroque machine, is a hallucinatory device that exposes the illusion of perception.