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The Attractor

Location: Southern end of The Overflow near the intersection of Dawn Fraser Avenue and Showground Road
Description: A large vertical metallic ladder
Artist/Designer: Imants Tillers (Artists), Alexander Tzannes Associates (Architects)
Commissioned by: Sydney Olympic Park Authority
Installed: 2002

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This 25-metre tall sculpture symbolises not only the fundamental principles of Olympism, but also the noblest of human endeavours. According to the artist "the giant ladder as a symbol of ascession has an obvious meaning in the context of sport and the Olympics-it suggests the desire to ascend, to scale heights, to climb up, to improve, to achieve to transcend one's limitations.

Each of the six rungs of The Attractor bear a word from the lowest rung upwards, sensus, imaginatio, ratio, intellectus, intelligentia, verbum.

  • Sensus - percieve, feeling
  • Imaginatio - imagination
  • Ratio - account, reckoning, reason
  • Intellectus - understand, realise, meaning
  • Intelligentia - intelligence
  • Verbum - word, proverb 

The Attractor was inspired by an illustration in a book by seventeenth century metaphysicist Robert Fludd.