Abstract: Foucault's pendulum as art installation

„Time Puddles” („Zeitpfützen”), Northern tower of the market chapel, Goslar, Germany *

Colored paint drips from the sphere of a Foucault's pendulum onto a plate of glass. The temporal sequence with which the paint droplets fall is determined anew each day by casting the die. For instance, following a "six" one drop falls only once every 85 minutes over the course of the next 24 hours. But next day, following a "one" numerous droplets flood the glass plate in a matter of minutes. The configuration finally "caught" on the glass plate owes its origin to the interplay of ”Chance and Necessity” (Jacques Monod), the fall of the die and physic's eternal laws. So much originated in the course of evolution which carries the label of natural law but in reality might have been entirely different, the daisy on the roadside, the DNA or the Rocky Mountains, for example.

* in association with Moenchehaus Museum of Modern Art, Goslar, repeatedly 1984 - 2004