Output details

Net Form.

Permanently sited sculpture, Candas, Asturis Spain. Commissioned by ADICAP, an EU, Leader+ funded project.

This permanently-sited sculptural intervention, funded by the EU Leader + programme, makes a contribution to understanding the implicitly kinetic nature of sculptural experience, and the relationship between object and site. The sculpture is constructed in mild steel, and was made in response to its particular location in Spain. It led to two further invitations for kinetic sculptures by the Jerwood Foundation (Pod, Oakham school, Rutland, UK) and the Ellesmere Sculpture Initiative / Arts Council England (Form on a Beam, Shropshire, UK).

Research Rationale

The sculpture furthers a consistent strand of Carpenter’s research, which examines the implicitly kinetic nature of sculptural experience in which a moving viewer experiences a static object. The open, reticulated form of the object serves to visually flatten the work, turning it into a flat, graphic presence until the spectator begins to move. In this way, the perception of the object as three dimensional is entirely dependent on the movement of the viewer. This perceptual flattening also serves to ‘decentre’ and open-out the object, making it impossible for the objects to presume to the organic sense of interiority that remains the staple language of sculpture.

Strategies Undertaken

This research strand has evolved through iterative making and reflection, resulting in a sequence of sited works. The sculptural decentring was adopted as a way of ‘flattening’ the object and initiating spectator movement. This prompted questions of autonomy which were addressed in subsequent works through elaborate stilts (Pod), and through unconventional means of location (Form on a Beam).