The ghostly senior art project of Matthew Valades ’08 in a basement tunnel of the Art Studio (artist and art pictured above and below) is featured in today’s Hartford Courant, as is the Wesleying post about it.
Buried in a dank corner of Wesleyan University’s art studio, it hangs from the ceiling, bathed in cold blue light and aimed into space. Sometimes, it turns itself on, purring with loud, rhythmic thrums. Its purpose? Speculation on campus swirls. The machine might cause you to hallucinate, someone posted on “Wesleying,” a student-run blog, maybe even see ghosts. Students and professors who paint and sculpt on the floors above it don’t know who put it there or what it does.
…There’s no sign posted to explain where the installation begins or ends, or any advertising to draw an audience. News of it spread on campus by word-of-mouth and the Internet. “It’s viral,” said Kuivila.
Valades thinks that reaction suits the installation’s guerrilla nature. He’s a bit miffed that some people boil it down to the “ghost machine,” but added, “If it gets people down here and thinking about [the hallway], I guess that’s the point.”…When he’s not adjusting the installation’s decor, Valades enjoys seeing how people react to it. Some take it in stride. Others, not so much — as one recent post on the Wesleyan student blog attests.
“how does it work??” the anonymous poster wrote. “ugh i pass it all the time but never know what to do.”
Yeah what’s up, this is Wesleying and legitimate news sources source us. Check out this sound installation, maybe you will hallucinate or something!
Full article: A Strange Machine’s Making Noise at Wesleyan