Conrad Shawcross: Dark Heart

A meditative work, Dark Heart is comprised of a pair of schematical, articulated arms that relentlessly and rhythmically rotate, while pulsing in and out.

The piece, originally in place over a lake, plays on both literary and scientific references.

In the first instance there are echoes of the hubristic search for the whale in Moby Dick and for the Heart of Darkness in Joseph Conrad’s novel of the same name, pulling their protagonists into a deadly spiral of obsession.

Scientifically, the work takes angular momentum as its inspiration, the conservation of which gives objects in space their intense rotation. Through this force in our own solar system, as in other universes and black holes, the planets tend towards a flat spiralling plane as they evolve and change over time.

This work is being presented in a new way this year at the Southbank Centre, but was initially the first outdoor mechanical work made by the artist.