Final Project¶

Context¶

This project gathers several threads of my practice into a single work. It builds on my previous stud of mathematical sculpting — an inquiry into geometry as a universal language, a way of observing and meditating on our relationship to land and place — and extends that study toward mechanism and kinetic movement. Here, those formal concerns meet a question that is at once deeply personal and political: the forced fragmentation of Palestinians from the sea, a symptom of a larger unfreedom and immobility.

The Idea¶

In the hills of the West Bank, people gather at viewpoints where the Mediterranean is clearly visible. Pulled by its gravity, these sights are at once a reminder of loss and of a collective aspiration. The idea begins in these places, and with a question: how might we challenge this forced separation by building a device that reconnects the coast with the highlands? Can we pull the horizon closer — make an object that reconnects us, however imperfectly, with the rhythms of the sea? This project is the beginning of an installation meant to travel to these viewpoints and open urgent conversations about the future, and about what liberation might look like.

I was took a lot of inspiration by kinetic artist Reuben Margolin who dedicated most of his work on the mathematical study of waves.Although I do not attempt to reproduce the form of the wave - I use the observation of the sea to annimate and rotate the spheres…

Returning back to my interest in mathematical sculpting I decided to base the sculpture of the geometry of the dodecahedron - in fact two nested dodecahedrons that rotate of different axis. This was the mechanical challenge I set out to solve.

As I was developing this project in Barcelona, I could not help but think of the vastly different human experience at the other end of the shore. This lead me to think of misalignments of time. How in certain places in the world time moves along a procession of celebration where the future is enthusiastically anticipated. While in other parts, time moves backwards or not at all, frozen in survival.

This lead me to rethink the sculpture so it better reflect the place that I am. And so I start to think of it as two embedded clocks. One moving by the rhythms of the seas the other by unknown chaos. The project at the end was the experimentation of all these ideas.

Final Video¶

Fabrication Summory:How it is made?¶

Mechanism Design¶

Triple Axial Design: The concentric shaft system has three layers, each with a distinct role. An inner rotating shaft drives the first geometry. An outer rotating shaft drives the second. Between them sits a fixed middle tube — not a drive shaft but a structural one, which stays stationary and acts as a scaffold anchoring the mechanism that redirects the second rotation.

Bevel Gear @109’: To change the axis of rotation in accordance with the dodecahedron’s geometry we need to design a custom bevel gear based on the tetrahedral angle. This was done by setting the angle, placing two cone then designing the bevels accordingly. Please see the archive for more detail

Steppers, Holders & Gears: The mechanisms are moved by two steppers. Custom gears where 3D prints and mounted on the stepper and the shafts of the installation. Screw inserts were places to ensure the tubes do not split. Please see the system integration week for more detial.

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Board Design¶

A custom pentagonal board was designed to hold the 3 drives (only 2 where used). The controler is powers and programed by a usb-c connection. See archive for more detial.

Geometries¶

The two geometries were a pair of perfect, nested dodecahedrons. The scale between them is set by an icosahedron that sits invisibly in the gap — its vertices defining where the inner and outer forms fall. Because the dodecahedron is a Platonic solid, all its vertices are identical, which let me resin-print the white joints easily: one repeated part rather than many unique ones.6mm and 5mm wood rode connected the joints.In other versions I would like to have more time to experiment with the geometry.