Interactive Public Art at the MARC

Josh Lansky, Sky Martin, and Chris Humbert working on the kinetic sculpture

What’s the buzz at the PC MARC? It’s soon to be a new kinetic sculpture suspended from the rafters, with whirling balls, racquets, skis, gears, and gravity drops. When an RFP went out for artwork to add to the facility, the specifications were that it encapsulate Park City values promoting a sense of play, community, and discovery.

Mike Wong is a PCCAPS (Park City Center for Advanced Professional Studies) volunteer mentor, a Park City High School graduate (’96), and an industrial engineer by profession. He submitted the winning design to the City, with a plan to engage and empower the PCCAPS students to create a tantalizing, community-based project. The students determined that the public art piece should emphasize athletics, outdoor recreation, community collaboration, use of technology, and recycled materials.

Working with Wong and teacher, Chris Humbert, the high school students designed, built, and implemented the project in real life, in real scale, and with real structural concerns. Sky Martin and Josh Lansky, both seniors in the PCCAPS program, describe their artwork as a cross between a Rube-Goldberg machine and a marble track, using hundreds of moving pieces which need to be curated, decorated, assembled, precision-timed, and perfectly scaled.

The PCCAPS engineering students designed and built a working scale model in the classroom, which was then converted into a computer-based 3-D model. From this, exact measurements and a parts list were determined which sent the students scavenging at Recycle Utah for reusable bicycles, skis, snowboards, racquets, hardware, and poles. Digital Media students, under the direction of Debra Corrigan, advised on the color palette for the sculpture, directing Fine Arts students in their efforts to paint, design, and decorate the parts that make up the whole piece.

Installation of the sculpture is scheduled for late May.