abacus sculpture by ray king floats polished spheres of stainless steel

abacus sculpture by ray king floats polished spheres of stainless steel
all images courtesy of ray king

based on the ancient calculation tool, ray king‘s ‘abacus’ is located in the west atrium of oregon state university‘s austin hall. placed above above the college of business’ ‘digital commons’ area, the sculpture is made of highly polished, lightweight, stainless steel spheres that are positioned to correspond to the pattern of beads on an abacus.

frontal perspective

(left) the polished stainless steel spheres reflect specular light from the skylights
(right) the sculpture appears different from every vantage point

twenty-four significant dates in the history of the institution were identified; starting with the year 1858 when the corvallis academy was founded to the opening of the building in the university’s college of business in 2014. the artwork is site specific, as it relates the idea of commerce, which is based on calculations from numerical values.

the placement of the spheres correspond to the position of the beads on an abacus to indicate the number of the year

each year has four vertical rows of seven spheres – along with a horizontal reckoning bar – associated with the date

read as an abacus, each row of spheres represents the date of a specific milestone in the history of the university

the artwork relates to the college of business’ function, as commerce is based on calculations of numerical values

the reflective surface of the spheres mirrors the changing environment

seen from below, the spheres appear foreshortened 

the work is suspended above the digital commons area

twenty-four significant dates in the history of oregon state university are represented. a wall plaque explains the milestones

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.