Kenneth Baskin, a UofSC SVAD graduate created & installed this sculpture in 2004.
We think was part of the 20th century artifact series he made.
An artifact is defined as an object that is created through human ingenuity. And that object, as artifact, is inherent within a cultural or historical context.
The investigative properties of the 20th CentTheury Artifact series are focused upon the mechanical objects or artifacts derived from the advent of the industrial revolution. Through our capacity for invention the anatomy of the machine, laying bare its individual yet integrated mechanical components, became the means of mass production and an accelerant in the performance of human tasks. This interdependence of humans and machines altered cultural conceptions and the two became intimately conjoined.
Within this current body of work I am exploring the integration of actual and abstracted machine parts into homologous interrelationships. Metaphorically, my sculptures reflect aspects of these interrelations through: balance and instability, domination and submission, tension and ease, opposition and compromise. It is through this dynamic of push and pull, give and take, that the spontaneity and structuring of these interactions takes place.
— Kenneth Baskin
