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by Heidi Kumao
En Español - PDF
No Português - PDF
Catalogs available
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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. |
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.
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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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