All of us learn the same way. We first explore randomly by trial-by-error. We then becoming more confident, but remain tentative and therefore indecisive. Finally, as one’s expertise grows, we become more direct and efficient in what we do – but often at the expense of being blind to opportunity and difference. Adults typically hate uncertainty and therefore strive for efficiency and expertise. Children on the other hand thrive in searching, in exploration. But the most critical point for true creativity and choice is at the point of indecision, of uncertainty, since only at that point do we combine knowledge of what is with the imagination of what could be.

This process of learning through interaction is experienced by nearly all living systems. Indeed, even the simple – but intelligent and beautiful – bumblebees goes through the same process when learning to see.

Here, etched into 100 x 100 x 100 mm crystal cubes is literally the flight of the bumblebee. The flight paths are tracked within the Bee Matrixin three dimensions with an accuracy of 1mm. Each of the three different cubes shows 2 minutes in the learning history of the same bee. The first cube shows a random flight pattern, as she searches randomly for a reward from artificial flowers represented as circles on one face of the cube. The second patterns is the pattern of indecision, where all her choices are accurate, but she spends a long time between each decision. The final trace shows the most efficient flight path, where – as an expert – she flies straight out and lands on rewarding flowers with minimal movement.

Thus, etched in this series of cubes is the process of ‘making sense’ of the world that we all experience.

These cubes can be bought individually (£100) or they can be bought as signed 2 metre sculptures of glass in which there are 40 blocks in each – as originally exhibited at TED GLOBAL 2009 and the Science Gallery in 2008 (£10,000).