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Letter to the editor

Dunedin art installation is something to think about

By THOMAS LAKE, Times Staff Writer
Published December 20, 2007

This mechanical-kinetic sculpture, Thinking Chair, is by Arthur Ganson and will be on display through Sunday at the Dunedin Fine Art Center. YouTube video: Arthur Ganson, Thinking Chair
	[Douglas R. Clifford | Times]

DUNEDIN -- If you are merely scanning the headlines, if you have no patience for the theoretical, if you have never found yourself pondering some cosmic mystery, stop reading now. This is not breaking news.

Those who remain should picture a miniature kitchen chair, barely an inch high, painted blinding yellow. Now picture it walking.

The yellow chair walks on its two front legs around a flat stone at the center of a gallery in the Dunedin Fine Art Center. The room holds several other pieces, but when you step inside, it is the chair that catches your gaze.

The chair is alive.

Seemingly, anyway; the chair is actually part of a machine, which runs on a 3-volt motor. Through a complex chain reaction involving several rods and gears, this motor propels the chair around the stone.

The chair circles the stone once every three minutes. You cannot help but watch. There is something riveting and familiar in its silent footsteps, its bipedal stride.

The chair is human.

No, it couldn't be; it has neither flesh nor blood, no place on its basswood contours to hide a cerebrum. But it moves with a certain self-awareness, and the way it leans forward reminds you of a person, scanning the ground, deep in thought.

When you first see the chair you are likely to smile, because it is small and lovable and entirely fascinating. But if you watch for any length of time you begin to imagine slumping shoulders and weary bones. You see it wrestling with mountainous moral dilemmas. You want to offer it a soft pillow and a hot drink.

The chair is sad.

At least you think it is, what with the sorrow it has tilled up in your own soul. You appreciate art, but you don't always understand it. You often wonder what the creator intended. You almost never know for sure.

You take note of the work's title, Thinking Chair, and its creator, Arthur Ganson. You look up Ganson on the Internet and discover that his machines have made him famous in some circles. He is a former artist in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been mentioned in Smithsonian and Forbes. You find his number and give him a call and ask him to help you understand the thinking chair.

Ganson tells you he spent years struggling with depression. His studio is in Stoneham, Mass., a few miles north of Boston, not far from an old forest full of bluebirds and hickory. He likes to walk in that forest. He favors one rock outcropping in particular. Sometimes he stays a good long while, circling the rock, head down, thinking.

One day in 2002, he saw a stone on the ground and picked it up. He got an idea.

The chair is Arthur Ganson.

Except Ganson can stop his circuitous pondering when he chooses. The chair cannot.

You ask Ganson if this makes him feel sorry for the chair.

No, he says.

"Maybe I feel envy."

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 3416.

FAST FACTS: Walking and thinking

Thinking Chair by Arthur Ganson is on display through Sunday at the Dunedin Fine Art Center at 1143 Michigan Blvd., Dunedin. Admission is free. For more information, call 727 298-3322.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Have a story?

Encounters is dedicated to small but meaningful stories. Sometimes they will play out far from the tumult of the daily news; sometimes they may be part of the news. To comment or suggest an idea for a story, contact editor Mike Wilson at mike@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2924.

[Last modified December 19, 2007, 23:56:24]