Adsum

Outer Space or Zero Gravity

Glass

"Adsum is a cubic glass sculpture inside of which letters are laser engraved. The letters are positioned one in front of the other, thus forming a spatial poem inside the solid glass cube that can be read in any direction. 'Adsum' means “I am here” in Latin, as used to indicate that the speaker is present (equivalent to the exclamation "here!" in a roll call).

To create this space poem, I developed a new typeface in which the letter “N” takes the form of an hourglass and the letter “S” has the shape of the infinity symbol. This is so in order for the work to be legible from any point of view within the cube. The two other letters, which stand between “N” and “S,” are a lowercase “o” and an uppercase “O” (evoking the Moon and the Earth, respectively). Taken together, it is always possible to read either NoOS or SOoN in three dimensions.

In addition, the design and spatial arrangement of the letters also produce a purely visual experience: a reversible transition from hourglass (representing human experience of time) to infinity (representing cosmic time). The shift in scale from the lowercase 'o' to the uppercase 'O' suggests a zoom effect going from time as apprehended by human cognition to the temporal expanse of the universe (and vice-versa)." - Eduardo Kac
https://www.ekac.org/adsum.html