1 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,480 [Sarah Sze: "Measuring Stick"] 2 00:00:23,940 --> 00:00:26,320 [VOICEOVER FROM FILM] We begin with a scene one-meter wide, 3 00:00:26,329 --> 00:00:28,689 which we view from just one meter away. 4 00:00:28,689 --> 00:00:32,660 Now, every ten seconds, we will look from ten times father away 5 00:00:32,660 --> 00:00:35,060 and our field of view will be ten times wider. 6 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,240 [SZE] In the Seventies, Charles and Ray Eames's "Powers of Ten" 7 00:00:43,250 --> 00:00:46,290 was the classic idea of a film 8 00:00:46,290 --> 00:00:48,330 that could measure time and space. 9 00:00:51,239 --> 00:00:54,299 That was something I always looked forward to seeing. 10 00:01:05,420 --> 00:01:08,220 So, I wanted to make a work that was about 11 00:01:08,229 --> 00:01:11,649 the measurement of time and space through the moving image. 12 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:16,100 Everything in it is actually very much about 13 00:01:16,110 --> 00:01:18,409 some kind of measuring stick 14 00:01:18,409 --> 00:01:21,809 for how we orient ourselves in time and space. 15 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:26,539 I had been working on it as a film, 16 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:30,600 but I hadn't pulled up the volume on what was it doing as a sculpture. 17 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:32,880 And I realized that, as a sculpture, 18 00:01:32,890 --> 00:01:36,840 it needed to act more like this kind of fleeting image-- 19 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:38,180 and it had to become more diaphanous, 20 00:01:38,180 --> 00:01:39,920 it had to become more fractured, 21 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:42,060 it had to become much more light 22 00:01:42,060 --> 00:01:43,620 and sort of defy gravity. 23 00:01:44,750 --> 00:01:48,070 So the screens went away and they just became pieces of paper. 24 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:52,480 And the top of the desk, I made a mirror. 25 00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:55,280 This is actually, in some ways, 26 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:57,120 a replica of an editing desk. 27 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:07,940 I was thinking about the idea of scientist image makers. 28 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,920 With the cheetah, I wanted to reference Muybridge. 29 00:02:13,700 --> 00:02:15,400 And then I was thinking about Edgerton, 30 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:16,960 who created the strobe. 31 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:18,640 We take for granted, 32 00:02:18,650 --> 00:02:21,910 they're really like scientific experiments with images. 33 00:02:23,060 --> 00:02:24,740 If you spend enough time with the piece, 34 00:02:24,750 --> 00:02:26,430 you realize this isn't just a video. 35 00:02:26,430 --> 00:02:29,930 It's actually live information coming to you from the NASA site. 36 00:02:30,570 --> 00:02:32,010 You see the distance to the Voyager 37 00:02:32,010 --> 00:02:35,030 and it's the farthest measurable distance 38 00:02:35,030 --> 00:02:36,950 that we have ever been able to measure. 39 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:42,000 Every object that's on the desk 40 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,440 is one of the objects that's being exploded. 41 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:48,300 So it has this quality of an experimental site. 42 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,700 You know, this idea of a model that's a scientific model-- 43 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:57,120 something that tries to actually measure a kind of behavior, 44 00:02:57,120 --> 00:03:00,000 I think, is something that I try and do in the sculpture. 45 00:03:02,010 --> 00:03:04,780 To have these extreme scale shifts in the experience 46 00:03:04,780 --> 00:03:06,420 in a very close proximity, 47 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:08,800 that is actually the way we perceive things. 48 00:03:09,260 --> 00:03:11,620 I'm trying to do that constantly throughout. 49 00:03:12,180 --> 00:03:14,700 It's such a volatile experience in every way 50 00:03:14,709 --> 00:03:16,080 that things are teeter-tottering-- 51 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:19,040 that you're constantly trying to find your balance.