Conrad Shawcross (b. 1977)

Housed in a giant cage like a volatile experiment, Perpetual Light I has an inherent sense of danger; the laboratory result of Conrad Shawcross’s artistic zeal for science. Comprised of an articulated arm with a single lightbulb at the end, it rotates at a speed of 200rpm. The resulting light line fluctuates at the precise degrees of a harmonic octave, like the graphic ‘waves’ seen on the visual output monitor of a stereo. This is Shawcross’s larger-than-life diagram of String Theory, a hovering illusion descriptive of the concept that matter is actually made up of continuous loops of energy, not individual particles. Displayed in a darkened gallery, the device works as a giant drawing machine, shining its patterned radiance through the wire grid onto the walls, leaving the viewer seeing spots like those caused by staring into the sun. Rather than making paintings on canvas, Shawcross imprints his image directly into the eye through the art of mechanical ingenuity, revealing a luminescent vision of how the universe is made.