Artist Christine Irving: Bury my heart at Burning Man

Share

Christine Irving is preparing to bury her heart in the Nevada desert.

The Toronto artist's latest installation, The Heart Machine, is part of next month's Burning Man. Held in the Black Rock Desert, the arts festival usually features large-scale installations meant to blow the minds of attendees wandering in the wilds. This year, a metal suit that interacts with 15 long bolts of artificial lightning and an ant farm (dubbed the "Mant Farm") large enough for people to move through it are among the works on show.

But The Heart Machine is likely to stand out from the rest of the mind-altering fare at the festival - not only does it include seven-metre flames, it challenges how we interact with art.

At the centre of The Heart Machine is, yes, a large metallic heart that is half-buried in the ground. Protruding from the heart are four "arteries" extending almost eight metres from the centre. Each one is connected to several sensors that, when touched, will cause flames to shoot up to seven metres into the air from tall columns.

It takes at least four people activating sensors to initiate a flame effect. When all 20 sensors are touched, The Heart Machine will respond with a "heart attack" - flames shooting from the top of one column to another in a sequence. Even for a festival defined by out-there surprises, this is sure to wow unwitting festival attendees, who will only find out what the installation is capable of as they play with it.

That sense of discovery, of working with others to make art come alive, is the underlying purpose of the installation, Irving says. There are no instructions on how to use The Heart Machine. Instead, it's up to the people who approach it to make it work through experimentation and working together.

"It's intended to force interaction among strangers," says Irving. "I want to have people question our interactivity and relationship with technology."

Irving is still something of an outsider in her own hometown arts community - by day, the 36-year-old works as a management consultant - which could explain her view that art and artists have become too rarified.

Her goal for The Heart Machine? "We want this to be the start of something different in Toronto for art," she says. "I love art; I love going to the gallery, but I hate that you can't touch anything."

The piece was inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis - the classic silent film about workers and owners struggling in a dystopic future shaped by technology. "Do we need technology? Does technology just exist because we want it? Is it frivolous? Could technology exist without us?" Irving asks.

To make The Heart Machine, Irving and collaborators from Site3, an arts collective, worked for about five months. A core team of about 20 people, as well as 10 volunteers, helped with everything from the plumbing to assisting with the electronics to the sculpting necessary to create the installation.

"It's not a fast process," Irving says.

Nor was it a cheap one. It will cost approximately $18,000 to build and ship The Heart Machine to Burning Man. Earlier this year, Irving sold her motorcycle to help finance the project. Other funds have been collected through donations.

Irving also snagged a small honorarium from Burning Man, support awarded to just 36 of 250 applicants, which will help pay for everything from the fuel for the flame effects to the heavy equipment needed to submerge the installation below the desert floor.

While she's not sure what will become of The Heart Machine when it returns from the desert, another of Irving and Site3's projects, which also includes interactive flame effects, will be part of October's Nuit Blanche in Toronto.

Both projects are intended to break down the invisible wall that separates people from art, Irving says. And, of course, both are meant to replace the distant contemplation of art with a sense of play.

"We really want to raise the bar and say, 'Look what we can do. And let's have some fun with it,' " she says.

The 2010 Burning Man festival runs from Aug. 30 until Sept. 6 in Nevada's Black Rock Desert ( burningman.com).