Salamanders

George W. Hart


This laser-cut wooden sculpture was group assembled by thirty people when I was artist-in-residence at MIT in October/November 2003 in an exciting sculpture "barn raising". Almost 30 inches in diameter, it is shown above hanging inside a window which looks out at the construction of the new Stata center, where it will eventually be placed.

My ultimate concept, if funding can be found, is for a large metal double sphere as shown below. The inner and outer sphere are each made of thirty of the sixty identical shapes. Each of these two-headed salamanders is parallel to an identical part similarly oriented in the other sphere. It is very interesting that the salamanders can join in these two different arrangements---one very open and one very interlocked:



Below is a computer-generated model of just the inner sphere:



If made in metal, there could be tabs with holes attached to the feet, that connect on the back of the head as indicated with dotted lines below. Then round-head bolts with hexagonal sockets would be used to hold everything together and serve as eyes:



I made a seven-inch prototype in acrylic plastic, to verify that all the parts can be woven through each other without jamming together. Because it is clear, it is difficult to determine what is what in this photo, but in person it is quite cool looking:



Mathematically, the design is a symmetric arrangement of planar components. A smaller 3D-printing prototype is shown on my rapid prototyping page. I brought the acrylic model and the 3D printing model with me to MIT to show people what we would be building at the group assembly event.

See also:

Update 2004:



It is now installed inside the Stata Center

Copyright 2003, George W. Hart