notes on motion

- 2019 -

plaster, pigments

approximately 52 x 39 x 10 cm and 33,5 x 42,5 x 10 cm

photography: Wytske van Keulen

The shapes are based on sketches Galileo Galilei made, in his Notes on motion, a collection of loose sheets full of drawings, calculations, short texts, and other representations of movement. The notes were taken from around the year 1600 until 1638, and were gathered in the manuscript Ms. Gal. 72, which can be found in the Biblioteca Nationale in Florence, and since recently is available also as a hypertext.

(You can find the electronic edition here: http://www.imss.fi.it/ms72/index.html)

It is not the first time that the work of Galileo somehow plays a part in my own work, I remember his book Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius) for example, which I was fond of during the time that I made SMALL SIGNIFICANT BITS OF SCENERY (2015). Also then, I was mostly drawn to a specific form of representation (the star shapes that he drew in that book, that looked so innocent, while carrying complex information). A form of representation which is neither abstract nor true to life (or 'realistic'), but something else.

notes on motion #1 (do1a, folio 81r)