Allen Fisher
disk
disk
A man in an orange flying-suit crossed an arena carrying a large
disk of clear acrylic with perpendicular sides. Polarised light
projected through the material made clear that the perfect shape
of the form was made possible by extreme tensions. A completely
civilised art. On the screen an action replay, a multi-coloured
moiré pattern. Dropping the disk into nitrogen and projecting
the light again showed the disk freed of tensions, but misshapen.
As a globular cluster plunges through the strong gravitational
field of our galaxy disk it produces a wake in the disk’s star
distribution. This wake involves a density enhancement behind
the cluster, which creates a gravitational drag, a tidal friction, on
the cluster’s motion. A disk allows a higher ratio of surface area
to volume than a sphere indicating a maximum rate of exchange
with the environment.
When a drop of blood is examined microscopically it’s easy to
distinguish the types of cell in the plasma. In humans the most
obvious are the red disk-shaped blood cells slightly concave on
both sides. Astronauts in zero gravity develop ‘spikes’ on their
red blood cells during their time in “space”. The phenomena of
the spiked disk has been prohibited by the death of red blood
cells after 120 days.