Strange Attractor | Alice Aycock

Published: Aug. 9, 2020, noon

Alice Aycock discusses her large-scale "wormhole" in a parking lot of the Kansas City Airport. The artwork ties themes of human flight, astrophysics and, some might say, extra-terrestials. Shaped like two giant trumpet bells facing away from each other and attached in the middle like a double-sided cornucopia, the artwork is fabricated like an airplane - an armature wrapped in an aluminum skin. The sculpture evokes the spaces created by wind tunnels, which are used to test the aerodynamics of airplane designs. It also suggests future travel through wormholes or time machines as imagined in science fiction. The neon antennae are designed as vertical counterpoints to the curvature of the tunnel. They also suggest that energy is radiating out into and down through the sculpture.