08. From hexahedron to stone
Every construction begins with a simplification. Before complexity there is an elementary form. Before variation there is a rule. Before the stone there is a solid.
The origin of Souvenir di montagna coincides with one of the simplest figures in geometry: the regular hexahedron.
The cube. Six square faces, twelve edges, eight vertices. No hierarchy between the parts. No privileged direction. No ambiguity.
The cube belongs to the domain of measure. It is a form that can be entirely described: each of its dimensions can be determined, checked and reproduced. Its structure leaves no room for the unexpected. This is why it is the ideal starting point.
The construction of the erratic does not begin with the observation of a real stone. It does not proceed by imitation. It does not seek to reproduce an existing form.
It proceeds by subtraction. The eight vertices of the cube are truncated, one at a time, with clean, random cuts. The form is destabilised. The faces go from six to fourteen. All the ninety-degree angles are cancelled out.
What remains is an irregular polyhedron with multiplied resting surfaces, better suited to being moved than the cube it comes from.
The result does not resemble a stone because it was copied from a stone. It resembles one because it has undergone the same kind of operation. And the change does not concern the form alone. It concerns the way the form lets itself be looked at.
Regular solids, the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron, have multiple symmetries. When they are rotated, many of their positions are equivalent: one face is identical to another, one angle is as good as the next. They have axes of symmetry and planes of reflection. From whatever direction they are observed, they return a recognisable and predictable configuration. Their visual identity does not change with the point of view. They are forms that close in on themselves.
An irregular polyhedron behaves differently. Its faces are not equal to one another: they vary in size, inclination and number of sides. Every rotation produces a different silhouette, a combination of edges and planes that does not repeat itself. There is no privileged position from which the form appears complete or definitive. It has no front, no back, no canonical view. Every shift of the gaze, or of the object, reveals a new configuration.
The procedure establishes how it is built. It does not yet say how large it should be.
Translation: Archivio Umberto Cavenago
On the left, the polyhedron obtained by randomly truncating the eight vertices of the cube. On the right, the starting cube with the wedges removed.
The starting hexahedron
The cut-off vertices of the cube, next to the angle grinder
The cube after the eight truncations
The truncations made at random on the regular solid
On the left, the polyhedron obtained by randomly truncating the eight vertices of the cube. On the right, the starting cube with the wedges removed.
