Emerging from a background in automata making Square Dance was my first kinetic-like sculpture which I made in 1999. Here the mechanism takes centre stage. This was a very important step as it was a beginning of the transition into a form of mechanical art which I found immensely liberating. No longer was the mechanism hidden from view, as with most of my automata. In my work the mechanism was to take centre-stage from now on.
The sense of anticipation is delicious when one looks at some kinetic sculpture while at rest. I wanted to highten that excitement even more so, because looking at Square dance at rest one knows what is going to happen. As the spectacles starts to move they fall immediately into a state of entropy and, as with the railway engine on its track, the predictability of its clearly predetermined course I find exquisite. A pair of glasses was chosen because they are both mundane and also highly comical, suspended in mid air as if worn by the Invisible Man.
