Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley

Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site...

's Quantum Cloud was commissioned for a site next to the Millennium Dome

Millennium Dome

The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. At 30 metres high, it is Gormley's tallest sculpture to date (taller than the Angel of the North

Angel of the North

The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead,formerly County Durham, England.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, standing tall, with wings measuring across...

). It is constructed from a collection of tetrahedral units made from 1.5 m long sections of steel. The steel sections were arranged using a computer model with a random walk

Random walk

A random walk, sometimes denoted RW, is a mathematical formalisation of a trajectory that consists of taking successive random steps. For example, the path traced by a molecule as it travels in a liquid or a gas, the search path of a foraging animal, the price of a fluctuating stock and the...

 algorithm starting from points on the surface of an enlarged figure based on Gormley's body that forms a residual outline at the centre of the sculpture.

The sculpture was completed in 1999 in time for the opening of the Millennium Dome.

The idea for Quantum Cloud came from a comment about algebra made by Basil Hiley

Basil Hiley

Basil Hiley, born 1935, is a British quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London.- Work :Hiley published a paper in 1961 on the random walk of a macromolecule, which was followed by further papers on the Ising model, and lattice constant systems defined in graph theoretical...

, quantum physicist (and long-time colleague of David Bohm

David Bohm

David Joseph Bohm FRS was an American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy, neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project.-Youth and college:...

), in which he said that "algebra is the relationship of relationships". The comment was made during a conversation between Gormley, Hiley and writer David Peat

F. David Peat

F. David Peat was born in Waterloo, England and is a holistic physicist and author who has carried out research in solid state physics and the foundation of quantum theory....

 at a 1999 London gathering of artists and scientists, organized by Peat.

External links

• Design study from LUSAS
  LUSAS
  LUSAS is a UK-based developer and supplier of Finite Element Analysis application software products that bear the same name.- History :...
  
   software including finite element analysis of the sculptures structure and site construction photographs.
• Project description and photographs by Elliot Wood Partnership, the structural engineering firm that assisted with the design and construction of the structure.
• Interview with Antony Gormley