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| Hidden Mechanisms: An
Illustrated |
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Growing
up in Berkeley, California, I spent countless Sunday afternoons in
Tilden Park, home to a historically preserved merry-go-round. Intoxicated
by the gentle sweep of the carousel's circular ride, its carved wooden
horses, and jeweled circus animals, I dedicated most of my time to
examining the mechanism that generated the music for the entire spectacle.
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| A free-standing wall approximately ten feet by fifteen feet stood in one corner of the building. Perched on the side facing the merry-go-round, a small wooden figurine of a woman conductor stood at attention on a shelf. Her mechanized right hand held a baton, which jerked up and down, punctuating the rhythm of the music. Mounted on the other side of the wall, hidden from view, automated instruments such as snare drums, a player piano, motorized cymbals and horns, struck, plucked, and tooted in synchronicity with the conducting woman on the shelf. Standing at the juncture of this wall, I was privy to two worlds of operation: the apparatus and the spectacle it generated. | |
| Studying the carousel and its machinery, I received an early lesson in observing two sides of the same reality. This privileged perspective echoed what a child might witness in her daily family life. In my own family, the additional factor of a cross-cultural marriage between my Japanese father and my Swiss-German mother added a sense of dichotomy to the separation between public life and private family rituals, and the differences between overt actions and personal motivations. The works in Hidden Mechanisms emphasize that duality by offering the spectator the opportunity to view a seamless spectacle of gestures and mechanisms while contemplating the implications of certain behaviors. |
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