WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
Work made for St Michael's the Archangel, Honiton, Devon.
When Guglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of long-distance radio transmission, was in his old-age he conceived the idea that all the sounds ever uttered in the world were still reverberating throughout the Ether. Consequently he attempted to make a recording of the Sermon on the Mount (of which the Lord's Prayer is a part) as actually spoken by Jesus Christ himself. The sublime, but utterly futile, enormity of that enterprise inspired me to make 'Which Art in Heaven" for St.Michael's Church; the Lord's Prayer being the most ubiquitous text uttered in English churches.
A sound wave of the Lord's Prayer as spoken was turned into a series of computer-generated drawings which were re-created in three dimensions by turning blocks of beech on a wood lathe, a traditional carpenter's tool. The resulting fragments were strew randomly across the church floor, co-incidentally resembling so many fallen Buddhist prayer wheels and over-sized lace bobbins; the latter significant as Honiton was once the centre of England's lace-making industry.
Work made for St Michael's the Archangel, Honiton, Devon.
When Guglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of long-distance radio transmission, was in his old-age he conceived the idea that all the sounds ever uttered in the world were still reverberating throughout the Ether. Consequently he attempted to make a recording of the Sermon on the Mount (of which the Lord's Prayer is a part) as actually spoken by Jesus Christ himself. The sublime, but utterly futile, enormity of that enterprise inspired me to make 'Which Art in Heaven" for St.Michael's Church; the Lord's Prayer being the most ubiquitous text uttered in English churches.
A sound wave of the Lord's Prayer as spoken was turned into a series of computer-generated drawings which were re-created in three dimensions by turning blocks of beech on a wood lathe, a traditional carpenter's tool. The resulting fragments were strew randomly across the church floor, co-incidentally resembling so many fallen Buddhist prayer wheels and over-sized lace bobbins; the latter significant as Honiton was once the centre of England's lace-making industry.