theEYE: Conrad Shawcross

Overview

Regularly using subjects which lie on the border of science and philosophy, Conrad Shawcross‘s structural and often mechanical sculptures question empirical, ontological and philosophical systems ubiquitous within our lives. While at first appearing rational and functional, his complex mechanised systems in the end deny all rational function and so the viewer is forced down philosophical and metaphysical avenues to deduce a ‘rasion d’etre’. From early works such as The Nervous System, 2002 – a monumental spinning machine that endlessly weaves a length of coloured rope into the form of a double helix, the shape of DNA – to his recent giant spiral work Continuum, 2004, the artist has attempted to visualize, among other things, the incomprehensible of human concerns, time.