Mike McCracken

In my very excellent mechatronics class, our first assignment was to make a piece of site specific art. That was the whole assignment. However, it being a mechatronics class in the dXArts program, it is naturally expected to be systems art incorporating electronic sensing and control apparatuses.

My piece was, in my opinion, based on a very nice concept, but it wasn’t really a systems art concept as it hinged on an emotive aesthetic (which, unfortunately, I basically failed to summon with my final product). I also foolishly didn’t begin the critique with an elaborate explanation of the concepts and intentions of the piece (and disclaimers regarding it’s incompleteness). I will probably continue to make that mistake.

Here is some video of my project at a site that was “close enough” to the site it was designed for.

Several people said it was phallic. I didn’t lob any assertions as to the state of cleanliness in their mind. Many people asked what it was, and apparently “art” was an insufficient answer. One person did say it looked kind of like a tree.

The intended effect was for the audience to think of the sculpture as a plant that is struggling to grow, and for the audience to want it to grow. That empathy would be in conflict with more literal aspects of the sculpture: it is made of garbage, traffic makes it grow. I wanted to create dissonance between an innate sense of care for this seemingly living entity, and repulsion from the ugliness of nearly every aspect of it.

The actual effect was simply a homemade looking unidentifiable thing that goes up and down. Oh well.