Sphere in Sphere

gilroyb

I was going into the library at about 6 this evening, and I noticed they had the 'sphere in sphere' all hooked up to a mobile crane. What was going on? I wanted to stay and watch but they seemed to be taking ages doing whatever they were doing.

Anyone have any idea?

Crash

yeah i sat there watching - from what i could glean, they're trying to clean out the mechanism that allows it to turn, which is unfortunately completely clogged up at this point. Andrew Torrance was walking around with a huge smile on his face as always.

Awayindahils

They agve up at about half 6 though apperently they didnt have enough straps to lift the spheres. the crane could have lifted three such spheres but lads there just arn't enough straps... ah organisation at its best

cuckoo

So, the death star didn't take flight.

Thirdfox

The sphere can turn??? :eek: Wow! Anyone ever see it do that?

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Never knew it could turn either ;_;

Crash

It hasn't been able to for the last fair few years because its so messed up - the mechanism needs a good fixin'.

gilroyb

Thanks for the info, I thought I'd heard somewhere that they were going to clean it out, but I'd never have imagined it would take a crane to do. I love the idea that a college which is meant to have some of the best engineering minds in the country saw no problem in surrounding the sphere with tiny pebbles that could clog up the whole mechanism.

Does anyone happen to know why there is at least one other version of this monument (in the Vatican)? Is ours just a rip off of the Vatican one?

xeduCat

Yeah, it used to turn. I have visited three other locations with versions of it (Vatican Museums, Rome; UN plaza, New York and sculpture garden, Washington DC), incidentally, and at least one of them turned quite freely.

Thirdfox

Lol...does that given an indication of how the world is performing generally - one out of four is free, others are in disrepair

Crash

I think part of the issue isnt that its surrounded by pebbles, its that some people did just end up throwing pebbles into any holes on it, which ended up kinda bad for it.

xeduCat

No, they are all slightly different, and there are versions in galleries as well (some of them are numbered, but spheres are a major theme of Pomodoro's work, apparently). The Vatican piece is, like the Trinity one, named as a 'sfera con sfera'; the Washington one is 'Sfera 6' ...

Incidentally the Vatican sculpture (probably one of the more high-profile, because of its location - it's in the middle of a big open space in the centre of the complex) is one of the most recent (1990; ours is 80s, AFAIK).

Ideo

hell yes the sphere can turn, i spun it around when i was about 12 and every other time i use to walk through college!

Andrew 83

Yeah I was watching for a good 3/4 of an hour, there was a big crowd!

xeduCat

If I've intrigued you (yes I know that's a totally inaccurate construction of a word, but 'meh' as wise people say) with this talk of spheres, do look here for some nice pictures. Columns is his other 'thing' so you see them too.

europerson

The Vatican one is huge:

cuckoo

I have a quest! To visit all the Deathstars. Hmmm, i wonder if any of them are in private collections.

*one fruitless google later*

Anyone know how many of them there are?

europerson

xeduCat wrote:

If I've intrigued you (yes I know that's a totally inaccurate construction of a word, but 'meh' as wise people say) with this talk of spheres, do look here for some nice pictures. Columns is his other 'thing' so you see them too.

Ooh, they're quite pretty, aren't they, in a mysterious sort of way? I always wonder what visitors to College think of it. I suppose if it spun properly, they'd think it was more interesting.

europerson

cuckoo wrote:

I have a quest! To visit all the Deathstars.

What's the Deathstar? Is that the sculpture at the Smurfit Institute?

xeduCat

Not as huge as it looks there.

However, it's not as small as it looks here:

Crash

Next time you walk past Sphere in Sphere, especially at night, look at it. then look at its shadow. then stand still, switch off your lightsaber, and say "if you strike me down, i shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine."

then, when vader kills you, your body will disappear and you'll get a role in two more films. deadly.

xeduCat

europerson wrote:

What's the Deathstar? Is that the sculpture at the Smurfit Institute?

No, various Bad People refer to this sculpture as the Death Star. Boo to them. And it's my quest too, but I only have four, plus addresses for various others (Guggenheim, Milan and Virginia are the easier ones). I have yet to find an exhaustive list on the Web, but there are various seemingly incomplete ones. If I turn up one in the library, I'll post it here.

PS Written with the true zeal of someone who has a private obsession and finds other people showing some interest in the subject...

PPS I was almost arrested for trying to photograph the UN one. It was the summer after September 11th and they were jumpy

PPPS I nearly did the same thing in the Vatican, it was earlier this year and I was told where to look for it before I travelled. However, I was in the museums after closing hours for a function, and thus it wasn't fully open to the public. But I found a side door that had been left unopened and made a quick run for it. Photos turned out terrible, though; I was so desperate to get back to the official business that I totally screwed up the settings on the digital camera that wasn't even mine...

Thirdfox

xeduCat wrote:

No, various Bad People refer to this sculpture as the Death Star. Boo to them. And it's my quest too, but I only have four, plus addresses for various others (Guggenheim, Milan and Virginia are the easier ones). I have yet to find an exhaustive list on the Web, but there are various seemingly incomplete ones.

Are they called Death Star 2s?

Crash

....get out.

gilroyb

xeduCat wrote:

I was so desperate to get back to the official business

A function in the Vatican? Wasn't a Conclave by any chance?

From looking at those pictures of the spheres, I've actually seen a number of them without realising, and been very close to others. Either I've been stalking them, or them me.

europerson

gilroyb wrote:

Either I've been stalking them, or them me.

They're rolling around after you...

Hermione*

europerson wrote:

They're rolling around after you...

LOL

cuckoo

gilroyb wrote:

Either I've been stalking them, or them me.

And once the Trinity Deathstar ('hi' *waves at xeducat*) starts moving again you'd better watch your back.

xeduCat

No, a dinner. It was part of a conference I was speaking at. If you look carefully at this image, you will see me...

europerson

xeduCat wrote:

No, a dinner. It was part of a conference I was speaking at. If you look carefully at this image, you will see me...

You're very close to the front: you must be very important in Vatican circles!

Crash

front middle, right?

Thirdfox

&#231 wrote: »

front middle, right?

The guy with the blue tie?

Pet

That would have worked better if it wasn't for the error in focusing. AF lock and it'd be perfect.

Crash

no no, Daithai's wearing some sort of white cape. can yeh not see him? granted he must've been sick that weekend, otherwise i dunno why they'd put him on a chair all on his own like that...

xeduCat

europerson wrote:

You're very close to the front: you must be very important in Vatican circles!

Highly off topic, but:

The reason for being in the front row is that the audience and Kodak moment was the end of a three day seminar. I was one of the speakers, and thus held some temporary importance. For the Papal audience (the picture is of the attendees at the seminar), people of diplomatic importance (UN reps, ministers, ambassadors etc) as well as religious (archbishops, monsignors etc) were naturally enough seated in the front row, but speakers were too. Which meant getting in the front row of the picture, and the minor matter of an individual introduction to the Pope...

europerson

Thirdfox wrote:

The guy with the blue tie?

No, left-hand side, to the left of the woman with feet like a Stormtrooper.

Thirdfox

I see (that's what I thought at first too - then Crash tricks me! )

Pet

&#231 wrote: »

no no, Daithai's wearing some sort of white cape. can yeh not see him? granted he must've been sick that weekend, otherwise i dunno why they'd put him on a chair all on his own like that...

Nonsense, Daithi's not half enough of a sap to be a glorified Bible geek.

red_bairn

I'm not a Trinners lad but I was also passing by today and saw a crowd about this beautiful sculpture. Very strange they couldn't lift it! Could they not have even lifted it slightly onto the ground beside the area...very feckin lazy I'd say.

europerson

red_bairn wrote:

I'm not a Trinners lad but I was also passing by today and saw a crowd about this beautiful sculpture. Very strange they couldn't lift it! Could they not have even lifted it slightly onto the ground beside the area...very feckin lazy I'd say.

According to one of the Buildings Office chaps, they hadn't "enough strapping". I think that's why the lift didn't go ahead. On a slightly related note, I never thought engineers wore suits while on the job, as it were.

Crash

Well at least one of the suited hardhatted man was the head of department and associate professor in the mech eng department - and an overall legend from any faculty committee's i've sat on him with. The other ones, i do believe, were also faculty members. or at least a couple looked quite familiar.

BrenC

about the pebble thing, isn't the 'deathstar' :P on a pedastal though? people would have to actually put them in the thing on purpose.

Crash

you're kinda underestimating students in general here....

&#231

&#231 wrote: »

Next time you walk past Sphere in Sphere, especially at night, look at it. then look at its shadow.

I thought you were going to comment on how it's shadow looks like pacman.

Crash

hrmmm - i've never noticed, but i am in the reading room atm, so I might have to give it a check.

gilroyb

Apparently there's another one in Tokyo. As seen by BESS student on 3rd year exchange. For when you find yourself in the Far East without a deathstar.

Time Magazine

xeduCat wrote:

No, a dinner. It was part of a conference I was speaking at. If you look carefully at this image, you will see me...

Is that Prof. O'Hagan of ARAM fame at the front, second from the right? It looks a lot like him!

europerson wrote:

...to the left of the woman with feet like a Stormtrooper.

That made me guffaw.

europerson

This small one is for sale: it's a more personal size, suitable for carrying and, potentially, throwing at annoying people.

xeduCat

Angry Banana wrote:

Is that Prof. O'Hagan of ARAM fame at the front, second from the right? It looks a lot like him!

No! But I've noticed the resemblance before, and it's TERRIFYING. I sit in committee meetings with him from time to time and expect to hear stuff about ARAM. Now I actually like John O'Hagan, but most of the meetings we both attended involved me harassing him. So I don't really want to relive it. The doppleganger's name is Sjur Bergan and he's head of higher education in the Council of Europe.

That made me guffaw.

She works for the education ministry in Austria. Had some sort of skiing accident, I think.

cuckoo

europerson wrote:

This small one is for sale: it's a more personal size, suitable for carrying and, potentially, throwing at annoying people.

We should have a collection, buy it, and reunite it with the Trinity Deathstar. It's cute.

Crash

Or we can reenact its birth - put it in one of the holes on the side of the trinity one, and have it drop out
then we can all rejoice and shout "Its a boy, its a boy!!"