Soldered brass, stone, 13 x 15 x 8, 2008.
Aesthetiscope is a stethoscope for beauty. The title joins “aesthetic,” from the Greek for perception by the senses, to the instrument a doctor presses to a chest to hear what goes on inside. The chest-piece here is a wide bowl raised on a dark column, with curved tubing looping down beside it. Art for art’s sake held that beauty is judged by perception alone and owes nothing to use or to morals. A stethoscope asks for a pulse. The bowl is held over the plumage and the tubing hangs slack beside it, waiting for something inside to answer.
