Alice Aycock, Whirlabout (Dynamo), 2019

Powder-coated aluminum, 823 × 579 cm

In memory of Hilary Ballon.

In April 2019, a sculpture by American artist Alice Aycock was installed in the West Plaza of the NYUAD campus. Entitled Whirlabout (Dynamo), the artist conceived the piece specifically for the University. Responding to its site outside the Experimental Research Building, she visualizes the energy of thought and ideas as a series of spiral vortexes gathering momentum – each vortex emerging from the one below as whirlpools of thought firing like exuberant neural patterns of energy.

Aycock intended for the work to have a somewhat random, haphazard quality – piling up on itself, spinning off into the air and forming a dynamic three-dimensional massing of forms. The sculptural assemblage is a metaphor for the way ideas connect in dynamic and unpredictable ways in pursuit of knowledge. The sculpture operates as an exclamation point vis-à-vis the architecture of the surrounding buildings. It also references wind and weather patterns (e.g. dust storms and sandstorms and cyclones).

To learn more about Alice Aycock, click here.