Aerosel Spinning Horn Sculptures

A couple years later we visited Coney Island, New York, when we traveled there to exhibit the Sonic Arboretum at the Guggenheim Museum. On the outskirts of this little amusement park there remain a few of the original rides, including the famous Cyclone which was built in 1927. They are beautiful vestiges of a time when rides were truly death-defying. Parachute drops and slinging, whipping machines, human centrifuges and elaborate sky screws. All with faded colors and rusting parts.

Already having horns on the mind, it wasn’t a great leap to imagine large brightly colored auger shapes sailing though the air, spinning and emitting phase shifting Doppler effects. A brand new compositional tool. A new medium.

I quickly started this drawing of my contraption. My (then) seven year old daughter was so completely smitten with New York, and Central Park in particular that my first rendering of this vision has it installed there.

As is customary with any of my horn shapes, I start with a skeletal construction to derive the flats to make a hollow horn shape. In this case though the spine would be helically-coiled, adding a new dimension to the construction. I laminated two layers of recycled newsprint around a fabric matrix reinforcement and impregnated the sandwich with epoxy resin. This was layed up around an eight-inch diameter tube.

By coiling these sandwiched layers at different pitches I obtained a variety of different coils. Then, I graphed out different curves rather whimsically on paper and applied consistent interval multipliers. Many octagons later, and with the methodical application of peripheral stringers, I had forms that could be covered with silk, just like old airplanes. Stick and tissue.

Somewhere in the middle of this process, I showed some video of the Aerosels to Andrew Bird, who showed it to his lighting designer, Ryan Murphy. The next thing I knew, these sculptures were touring the US and Europe. Bathed in colorful and textural light, the Aerosel horns rotate slowly behind Andrew and his band casting shadows on the backdrop.

In November 2011, the SOFA Chicago International Art Fair requested Specimen exhibit these Aerosel sculptures at the fair in their cafe space at Navy Pier Exhibition Hall. The Art Fair Company responsible for producing the fair created six custom curved walls to serve as backgrounds for each of the sculptures. Specimen’s Aerosel sculptures were also used in promotional material for the fair.

These one of a kind horn sculptures are now available for purchase. Custom orders are also welcome.