bone factory

bone factory is a private installation within an exhibition setting. A white tent shelters one participant from gazes of the other visitors. Next to the tent, a small concrete workshop is set up: a mixing machine, sand and gravel, cement, buckets, water and chemistry. One participant each time only, is invited to close the curtain, to lay down and become part of the bone factory. Through a mechanism of weights and strings three pedals are linked with three jugs. While the participant arranges a thin plastic which will shield his/her body from the acrid concrete, the noisy mixing starts on the other side of the tent. The artist enters only briefly to fill up the jugs with the liquid substance — thereafter the participant is alone in the tent. By pushing the pedals, he or she can tilt the jugs and let the cold stone slowly flow into the spaces in-between the arm and the upper body (left and right) and the one in-between the thighs. Since it’s only little material the participant feels that he/she could simply stand up and leave — any strong movement would easily spill out the concrete. It takes approximately twenty minutes of steady resting to create a pair of bones. During this time, the participant feels the steady transformation of the temperature and the viscosity of the material from liquid to solid, while being surrounded by the noises of the ongoing exhibition. After the concrete is hardened it still needs some patience and sensitivity to finally sit up without breaking the fragile, freshly cured stone. The finished, individual bones are arranged next to the already existing ones in front of the tent. The tent remains open — presenting the apparatus — waiting for the next participant to become part of the machine.