If I make a wild supposition that throughout the human culture new words are being derived from older ones & ndash; or from one language to another – in order to support new meanings, and that the similarity of words is conserved and points to some previous rudimentary word and meaning – then I can present a thesis that defines the field of Being:

• bitje (Slovene): beating of the heart, of clock – the symbolics of an (autonomous) entity / being that is alive, the notion of the dimension of time, that it belongs to – representing the presence of being in the moment and in the time span;
• biće (Croatian): the softer derivation of the Slovene word, that bears the same meanings, and additionally also a direct idea to future. In Slovene: biće = bo, maybe also as an ancient root od the word that in time became bog – (English: god), maybe as an idea of the hope which is in the future – in connection to the word boljše (English: better; or in Slovene Prekmurje region: bogše) –and at the same time the delegation of hope to bog/god.
• ben (Italian), bon, beau (French), etc.
• to be (English), being: the same word-meaning root with all the basic derivations of self-identification and self-creation – being, become, belong, begin, before...

Metaphore incarnated

This project deals with relatively basic research into autonomous structures / systems – mechanical moving organons, although not exclusively them. It is about basic elements that have previously been strained and then in a particular way interconnected, so that, in the final stage, now intertwined, they make up a structure to which all the strains of the basic elements are transferred.

I tried to create a kind of twisting body – a morphologic object. The secret is in the use of torsionally twisted plastic elements that when fixed (at least two together) at one end create a transfer of torsion energy to the whole of a structure. The condition is that on the other end the elementary structure is rooted to the point that is not directly connected to the first end of the basic structure. It is however desirable that the final combination of such elements create a structure that is self-contained – and ‘strained’ as a whole.

The result is an interesting cybernetic system, that has built-in energy (potential energy) – and a number of properties, that make it ‘more bodylike, more organic, more live’. From physics we know that potential energy likes to change into kinetic (moving) energy– and this is the motivation for building this object. I wanted especially to eliminate the usual omnipresent (and well understood) rotary movement (and the transfer of of movements with wheels and strings) and replace it with the more primary method: translation movement. Of course we are in the domain of building autonomous machines popularly known as robots.

Strained structure is a re-invention of two principles: the Moebius structure (the loop I 'invented'10 years ago) and most of all the reinvention of the Buckminster Fuller “tensegrity” principle. I came accross english word “tensegrity” (combination: tensional integrity; integritiy as a whole, unification by the use of mechanical tension). Both concepts and reasoning are totally conforming. The re-invention happens when the path towards it is totally independent and all the necessary steps are made.