Michael O'Rourke

Graffiti: Viewers are invited to write their names, initials,or tags on the back side of the spire form. Normally a way to preserve one's presence, memorialize one's self, here those goals are knowlingly undermined. Viewers know the sculpture will soon be destroyed by the weather and that their efforts will not last more than a very short time. Still, we do it in spite.

Paper, board, audio, video. Intended size of final sculpture 3.5 m tall. Model size 22" tall.

Hover over the image below to play a turntable animation of the model. Model size 7" tall.

Mountain Sculpture #7, with human figure to indicate scale and simulated background. Paper board, audio, video. Intended size 3.5m

The entire sculpture is exhibited outdoors against the backdrop of mountains. Because of its impermanent and fragile materials, it is soon reclaimed by the winds and rains of the same environment that helped make it beautiful. The paper and board collapse and deteriorate, the multimedia components fail and cease to function. The artwork returns to the raw materials from which it was fabricated.

Animation: Within a cavern-like section of the sculpture, animations of tiny running figures are projected onto the surface. The animated characters are tiny, silly, comical. They appear suddely from nowhere, scurry across the surface of the sculpture, and just as suddenly disappear off the edge of the paper.

Waterfall: On the flat triangular surface that underlies part of the sculpture, water (real, not virtual or projected) trickles down from the top corner to the bottom edge, disappearing off the lower edge. The soft sound of the trickling water is constant and audible no matter where one stands to view the sculpture.