Spinal Intervention (2014)
Your nervous system is spread throughout your body, with a high concentration along your spine and in your gut, forming a “mind” inside of your core that is often ignored or overruled by the immediate demands of your brain. Our cultural moment is often cerebral to the detriment of our whole embodied selves.
Spinal Intervention is a sculptural sewing back together of Silo City’s industrial mind and earthen body, engaging the movement of visitors and the play of light to create a monumentally figurative sculpture, exposed only in part. The site is so large and imposing that only through the completion of imagination can artistic work hope to play on a level field.
The wire armature and layers of polymer and acrylic create biological patterns similar to the human micro-biome when lit, turning images of our inner cosmos into a scaled drama of evolution and adaptation.
The ~50′-long Spinal Intervention was constructed of 26 vertebrae and nerve clusters aligned with the slope of the ground at Silo City, within an area containing two gentle hills to suggest the curvature of a human spine. The vertebrae were lit by led bulbs that illuminated their surfaces as night falls from within.
Exhibition
Silo City, Buffalo, NY
Materials
Wire armature, polymer, and acrylic
