Back Main Next
Click on image to examine orbital periods* (Java required)
Artist: Juan L. Gomez-Perales
Title: From the Quadrivium Series: A preliminary sketch for Jovian Teaparty
Date: 2011
Media: digital print, graphite and ink sketch for orbital/galactic worldline drawing

Locating the point in space
Tracing segments of the 4 dimensional worldlines
Jupiter and Earth
Where the worldlines cross
We sip our tea
On the spot
That Jupiter had recently occupied less than nine hours previous
The intersection of these two lines
Creating a locus of note
Worthy of celebration

Current ideas in cosmology and theoretical physics have raised the possibility of thinking about the dimensionality of space in different ways. While sculpture may be an artistic expression in 3 dimensions, the possibility of additional spatial dimensions offers an enticing vocabulary for artistic exploration. As the language evolves it helps to ignore certain cumbersome yet comfortable notions. By eliminating the viewer from the equation, I have freed myself from the limitations of scale and Newtonian physics and have gained some insight into higher spatial dimensions, concepts such as worldline and the complexity of simultaneity. While the actual works may be invisible, the traces, concept sketches, calculations and moments present themselves to me in a very real way as a kind of drawing process.

* Technical note:
As I am only interested in a very small portion of the orbital paths, the point of worldline intersect, I can recognize a duality between the orbital path and the orbital period. By using the orbital period, the calculations become much simpler and this explains why the orbits appear circular and concentric.