Sean Noyce

Glyphs is a series of kinetic sculptures that engage chance as a generative principle for revealing hidden outcomes. Randomness has long been a central component of ritualistic practices, particularly within traditions of divination and chaos magic, which employ tools such as scrying, sigils, tarot cards, and black mirrors to produce meaning through indeterminate processes.

This series situates itself within that lineage while drawing on mechanical instruments of antiquity, like the astrolabe, dioptra, sundial, and the Nebra sky disk — artifacts produced in eras when cosmology, mysticism, and scientific inquiry were more closely aligned. By referencing these tools, the works highlight the historical entanglement of symbolic modes of knowledge.

The sculptures invite viewers to participate directly: as they turn the cogs and set the sculptures in motion, they are asked to focus on a set of clearly-defined thoughts, desires, or intentions. At the moment they intuitively choose to stop, a glyph is automatically generated. Each glyph operates as a symbolic form charged with significance that exceeds individual interpretation, functioning as a manifestation of collective consciousness.

Through this process, Glyphs proposes a recalibration toward knowledge systems that embrace both rational thought as well as the mysterious. The works render visible the unseen patterns that structure human experience, suggesting alternative modes for understanding how we construct meaning in the world.