Haruka Misawa Challenges The Laws Of Attraction In Her Artwork ‘Form Of Gravity’
- Name
- Haruka Misawa · Maho Motoyama
- Project
- Form Of Gravity
- Photographer
- Masayuki Hayashi
- Words
- Rosie Flanagan
In ‘Form of Gravity’, Japanese designer Haruka Misawa—formerly of Nendo—has created an object that challenges the push and pull inherent to the law of attraction.
“A transparent sphere, created soundlessly, sinks in silence”, she explains. In ‘Form of Gravity’, liquid drops from the top of a glass cylinder; after which its route south appears delayed as it slows to an unexpected pace. Excluding such instances, we rarely pay attention to gravity. Why would we? When we drop something, we understand that it will fall. Misawa’s creation grants new attention to the curvature of spacetime and the subsequent uneven distribution of mass—not because it changes it, but because it makes us look harder at it.
“To stare at it is to subvert one’s sense of weight, causing a mysterious sensation of time slowing down”, the project description continues. “Transforming organically in response to its environment, the sphere might be better described not as a shape but as the very essence of movement. To look at water—something you do every day without thinking about it—suddenly feels like encountering a substance you had never seen before. This experiment is mission of exploration to find possibly unknown properties hidden within materials and everyday experiences that are familiar to us all.”
Art director: Haruka Misawa(Misawa Design Institute, Nippon Design Center, Inc.)| Designer: Haruka Misawa & Maho Motoyama (Misawa Design Institute, Nippon Design Center, Inc.)| Glass Artist: Toshio Yagihara | Photographer: Masayuki Hayashi | Movie Editor: Michihiro Kuroda | Composers: Noriyuki Sato and Makiko Sato (Heima)