World's First "Living Sculpture"
By: Dave McKinley
Updated: November 23, 2007
In a city renown for its art and culture, there's a new addition to Rochester's Public Safety Building, the likes of which hasn't been seen here or anywhere else.
For the past 2-1/2 months, artist Jon Karafin has been working 12 hours a day, assembling his 25 foot tall masterpiece in the lobby of the public safety building.
Some literature nearby informs curious passersby that the whole thing involves "mathematical phenomena transcending culture and time, which utilizes ancient and contemporary discoveries to reveal scientific and aesthetic laws of the cosmos."
Although Karafin says, "when people read that they really have no clue."He more simply defines his creation as the first ever "living sculpture."
Karafin says, "The sculpture itself is physically alive. There are organisms that live inside those cells, those clear tubes with all the colors and they're able basically when they eat sugar , create electricity so when that happens within this structure , it's gonna produce all its own light, it's gonna produce it's own sound and it also grows over time as it drips down from the top it has a circulatory system and it forms crystals.."
The sculpture will eventually grow to cover the more than 3 miles of pvc piping and untold lengths of tubing and wire in the sculpture.
It should grow forever as long as air is pumped into it , so the organisms living in those 360 fuel cells don't end up killing themselves by creating alcohol.
The micro-organisms contained within are in fact common baker's yeast, a single cell fungus
The unveiling of "the world's first living sculpture is open to the public,
It's Friday, December 7th at 5pm in the lobby of the Public Safety Building on Exchange Street.
