Interstellar Medium: Cosmic Dancer
Lifesavers candy on birch panel, T-slot frames, acrylic glass, mini speakers, custom mix by polly hertz, 120 x 120 cm, 2018
Lifesavers candy on birch panel, T-slot frames, acrylic glass, mini speakers, custom mix by polly hertz, 120 x 120 cm, 2018
Referencing the Second Summer of Love’s aesthetics, Interstellar Medium: Cosmic Dancer’s trippy, candy-colored dancefloor is a comet hurtling bodies through time and space. Activated by dancing, the dancefloor-cum-spaceship is powered by methyl salicylate. Better known as a flavoring agent (wintergreen) and painkiller (aspirin), methyl salicylate is produced naturally by plants as a response to stress. It also magnifies the phenomena of triboluminescence, creating visible sparks when the individual wintergreen candies comprising the floor are fractured. In addition to sustaining fractures, the crystalline bonds of the sugary candy disintegrate and the dancefloor's sculptural patterning becomes more fluid over time.