Lost Koan, 2007
250 x 150 cm base diameter
Glass reinforced polyester, Perspex, motorised drive and fluorescent lights
The title for this work has a dual meaning, referencing, as it does, two quite different matters.
My first series of Koans were made in 1969. In order to make them, I had to have a mould made and I, therefore, made 3 Koans of the same size, 5’6” (168cm) high and 40” (101.5cm) base diameter; Anti-gravity Koan, Space Displace Koan and Exit Matter Koan. Space Displace Koan is now in the Tate collection, however, both Anti-gravity Koan and Exit Matter Koan were purchased by the Boissonas family for their sculpture collection in Flaine, France and subsequently they terminally damaged in a fire.
In the late 1990’s, I decided to remake them changing both the scale and the angle of the cone. Zero Gravity Koan and Lost Koan are the result. The title Lost Koan refers to the disaster of losing the original works but it also refers to a much more recent experience. In 2005, during my NASA residency at the Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, I interviewed astrophysicist and renowned expert on the aurora borealis, Dr. Stephen B. Mende. I was fascinated by the visual thoughts arrayed upon his whiteboard and asked him to explain their meaning to me. His explanation was fascinating, and surprisingly connected to my own work, when he referred to the space above the poles where the solar wind meets with the earth’s magnetic field as the lost cone.
