Machine With Breath: Breathe (2013)
A collaboration with kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson
The Museum at MIT
ART REVIEW, THE BOSTON GLOBE
Mechanical, moving at same time at MIT Museum By Cate McQuaid - Globe Correspondent, December 2, 2013
“5000 Moving Parts” MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge Mass. 617-253-5927. http://web.mit.edu/museum Closing date: Nov. 30, 2014
Many of the works bring us back to our own bodies. Arthur Ganson, kinetic sculptor and longtime darling of the MIT Museum, here collaborates with sound artist Christina Campanella on the topic of respiration.
Ganson’s “Machine With Breath” features a lung of sorts: a black cylinder with accordion folds. It compresses mechanically, then releases, at a slow, meditative pace. Unremarkable as it is visually, I could have sat there watching it for an hour, breathing with it.
“BREATHE,” Campanella’s soundtrack available on headphones, originates from a microphone inside Ganson’s apparatus. A low bass accompanies the whistling wind of respiration, and wee chirrs remind us this is a creaky machine. Again, the contemplative rhythm delivered me out of my chatty head right into my own breath and flesh.
BREATHE was commissioned for ‘Kinetic Mandala’ (2012), a showing of select works by Arthur Ganson at The Kresge Gallery, Ramapo College (Curator: Daniel Mason)
photo: Daniel Mason
Campanella listens to Ganson’s machine (Arthur Ganson Studio, Lowell, MA 2012)