Clare Strand

The Entropy Pendulum is a specially constructed apparatus that continuously sets a pendulum in motion. As it swings, the pendulum's abrasive weight scrapes across 35 individual ex-tabloid photographs from the artist's archive, gradually wearing them down.  On each day of the exhibition, one photograph from the set is placed beneath the pendulum. At a time determined by the gallerist, the image is removed and placed into one of 35 empty frames on the gallery wall. Once all 35 images are framed, the process is complete.The images are then extracted from their frames ready to reenter the Pendulum for their next performance.

The Entropy Pendulum acts as both machine and metaphor, translating the processes of digital image circulation into a analogue act of erosion. In response to the endless scrolling, harvesting, scraping, capturing, and re contextualisation of images online, the pendulum materialises a cycle of degradation and reinvention. As its arm swings, scraping across the gelatin image layer, the photograph's assumed indexicality is gradually eroded. Its movement from left to right also evokes political and ideological binaries, while the middle and centre of the image is abraded. 

The Entropy Pendulum draws upon Claude Shannon's concept of information entropy, in which information, surprise, and uncertainty are fundamental to the transmission and circulation of signals and data. The tabloid photographs that enter the pendulum were selected form the artists collection as they draw from  recurring areas of inquiry, including magic, industry, telepathy, technology, and communication.

The Pendulum has performed in London, Paris, Germany and will be showing in Boston USA in September 2026.