Mobilus Vita, 1995

Photo by University Publications

The new buildings and areas designed for the University of Medicine and Dentistry express great confidence and promise. Modern angular shapes and large spaces affirm up-to-the-minute technology and techniques for medicine and its teaching. The figures in this sculpture enhance the architecture by giving a visual reference to the buildings and the subject created, which is the human body.

This project consists of three sculptures, originally intended for the outside of the medical building in the plaza and atrium. Now, they are located inside the Rowan Medical Building. These sculptures were built based on medical and scientific technology, from the materials they use to the methods science uses to examine the human body. They explore some of the beauty in these methods and, rooted as they are in the tradition of figurative, carved sculpture, they serve to take the hard edge off this sometimes cold and unfamiliar world. 

While these sculptures interpret scientific visualization techniques both in the stone carving and the light display, the interpretations are freely made and offer their own ideas and concepts. The two single figure sculptures stand side by side and can be viewed through the lighting and shade they implement. One sculpture depicts a male figure and the other a female, both figures rendered by lines carved into the scone. Although the lines are carved into a flat surface they will give the illusion of three dimensional form. The lines in the figures are suggested by the way a computer maps the surface contours of the body. The figures are drawn in attitudes of motion or implied motion. 

 The sculptures also contain lighting in which the fiber optic display interacts with the stone, creating another conceptual layer. The figure of the male is assembled out of a series of planes that become three-dimensional forms to create a substructure within the carving. The light will appear to sculpt the stone’s surface through an optical illusion that brings the light into relief. At times it will be a random mosaic of color and at other times the mosaic will blend together into one color, creating a silhouette of the figure with light. At unpredictable intervals a background of light will appear and blend with the figure. The female figure will undergo changes like the male figure but will be drawn with lines of light that form a tightly woven gridwork. Both figures will be transformed in many ways with an almost endless variety of pattern, color and interaction with the background.

The third sculpture has both a male and female figure carved into its stone surface. The light display renders these two figures with varying grids of light and color. Much like a richly colored, continually changing mosaic, the patterns will emphasize, through the varying shapes and patterns that emerge, abstract definitions of structure and systems of the human body. The program on each sculpture will take several days to see, giving viewers new visual experiences each time they pass by. 

The stone surface of all three sculptures is carved on the back as well as the front. A light display on the back of each sculpture will delineate each figure in a grid of changing points of light. 

If the figures in time sculptures seem somewhat familiar it is because they were suggested by works of art from the past. The single male figure was suggested by a Greek sculpture from 460 A.D. The female is a modification of Botticelli’s Venus. The sculpture with both figures was suggested by Albrecht Durer’s etching of Adam and Eve. 

These sculptures are an expression of the human form in some of the unique ways we are able to see it today. Through their design and changing light displays they give voice to some of the concerns of osteopathic medicine — structure, movement and the integration and linking of systems. By their visual interpretations of science they give positive support to the ideas and technology that will be used and taught here. And, by integrating these thoughts and visualizations within a carved stone format, they offer reassurance in the new through continuity and tradition.