Artwork Untitled (an object kindly enclyning)

A large magnifying lens spins on an illuminated glass surface. It begins to slow, then to wobble, finally falling on its side though still spinning. Here it starts to play with perception, and a reverse rotation effect occurs in which the lens now appears to spin and wobble in the opposite direction. But instead of slowing down further and coming to rest as might be expected, the lens rights itself back up spinning in the opposite direction, only to fall and repeat the sequence in an endless loop.

Work title taken from Chaucer’s Hous of Fame; and also Copernican theories of gravity, in which he believed that the “gravity” of the sun, moon, and earth was actually a “kindly enclyning” tendency of matter to come together to form Platonic spheres.

Subtextual in the work is also the under-recognized impact that ground glass lens technology, via Galileo, had on our understanding of the nature of the heavens. It could easily be argued that the simple magnifying lens was the locus for the complete paradigm shift in cosmology away from a medieval God.