Rotating Harmonic, 1959

Rotating Harmonic, 1959, steel rod, motor, copper and wooden base, 140 x 40 x 40 cm.   This is Lye’s classic work.  From one simple, steel rod, lye coxes the fundamental principles of harmonic motion that underlie his work.  “Well I found I could spell out the whole business of energy being absorbed … in this carbon steel (rod).”

“So you’ve got a kind of drama going on whether this metal could accept this energy and you felt it as such-- there seemed to be some kind of living business and in a way it was.  So far as metal and resonance and stuff goes it was natural to the order of energy in nature.  Feedbacks, harmonics, reciprocation, and so on.” – Len Lye