The Main Piece
In January 1979, Senator Carl Levin asked me to build a sculpture that would respond to the United States Senate. The work, titled THE SENATE PIECE, was completed and installed in the Senator's Washington office a year and ten months later on October 17, 1980.
THE SENATE PIECE consists of three sculptures: THE MAIN PIECE, THE FALLING DOLLAR and ONE OF THE BOYS.
THE MAIN PIECE, pictured above, senses
five
things: the sound of the Senate proceedings which are piped up to the
office
from the floor of the Senate, the buzzer and light signal system,
sounds
in Senator Levin's office, the movement of warm objects (usually
people)
in front of the sculpture, and the general light level in the office.
It
then responds to these stimuli by activating various features of itself
and the other two sculptures according to an idiosyncratic logic
designed
into the circuitry. There is no one-to-one correspondence between any
one
environmental event and any specific behavior of the sculpture.
Generally,
ONE
OF THE BOYS only inflates during quorum calls, the dollar may fall
at any time,
and the action of the wheels of justice is
erratic.
A problem cropped up shortly after the sculptures were installed. Visitors to the Senator's office often wanted to know about the sculpture, how it worked. Senator Levin got the length of his answer down to about two minutes, but for visitors who sometimes had only a five minute appointment, it took precious time out from their visit. He needed a way to satisfy their curiosity without using up their time. So I produced a one sheet handout that would answer the most frequently asked questions. To answer the query of "How does it work?", I drew a kind of flow chart and included it in a brochure.
From 1963, the beginning of my use of electricity in art, I have
sought
to integrate electronic hardware into both the form and content of the
artwork. The circuit board of THE MAIN PIECE, with its images and
patterns
formed by the silver printed circuit pathways, exemplifies that
concern.
I have worked to describe much of the imagery with the metallic lines
that
also must meet the requirements of the electronics. I like the printed
circuit to serve both a functional or a decorative purpose.
detail of "The Main Piece"
The Levin
Hitchiker is another collaboration I did with the senator.
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