Not the Same yet Not Another

Like leaves from a tree . .

This build is certainly among my career favorites. I became slightly obsessed with it.. building it several times over a 4-day period. Often times it is quite difficult to achieve the appeal of the first Zero in a series of repeated builds. With these extreme counterbalance arrangements, one zero can take 5 minutes, and the next one can still take up to an hour or more. Due to the extreme technical difficulty, although highly formulaic, still makes the situation unpredictable.. I remember doing a less technical version of this style for my live performance during the World Economic Forum 2015.. Risky situation. executed with style and grace…

anyway, in this case, z.I = the initial zero, or build, which usually takes the longest, sometimes many hours of experimentation… z.II is the second and so on… I wouldn’t really call them variations since it’s the same formula of rocks. instead each build is part of a series of instances. Not really sure how else to describe them. Favorite ones are 1 and 4. Why? If you look closely, it’s all in the geometry and blend of angles… in those two zeros, the top rock AND yellow one below are slightly closer to their respective limits, of both angles and friction. Ever so slightly more extreme formula than the other 2. THAT much more unlikely.

You are at once
both the quiet
and the confusion
of my heart.

~ Franz Kafka