Spiral Fatty
Spiral Jetty is a 1970 earthwork sculpture considered to be the central work of American artist Robert Smithson. Built on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah, Spiral Jetty forms a 460 m long and 4.6 m wide counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. The water level of the lake varies from year to year, revealing the jetty in times of drought and submerging it during times of normal precipitation.
During the building of a small scale research FATBERG in Cambridge warm fat oozed of the surface of the FATBERG and created a very similar spiral of fat in the water. We named it Spiral Fatty, to commemorate Smithton’s monumental landart piece but also to investigate the actual coiling process that creates this effect. When warm fat pushes itself forward through cold water the solidifying process possibly creates this coiling action because of the difference in structure between fat in direct contact with the water and the fat just behind it.