Maker Faire Beyond the Age of Reason Zone

San Diego Art Institute

October 6 & 7 from 1-2 pm in the lower gallery

Attend this event with your Maker Faire San Diego ticket or with your SDAI admission.

Artist Dave Ghilarducci will talk about his work and practice, answer questions, and demonstrate how he combines engineering and creativity to produce sculptures and objects that spark the imagination of viewers of all ages.

The artist Dave Ghilarducci combines technology and creativity to produce interactive artworks of all sizes. One of his recent installations, Taping Shape, at the Fleet Science Center invited families to crawl through a giant maze constructed of nothing but transparent packaging tape. Ghilarducci uses his training in electrical engineering to create objects that capitalize on human behavior.   By creating mechanized works that emphasize playfulness over functionality or productivity, he encourages viewers to relate more directly with his machines.  Once engaged in this dialogue, the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines becomes undeniable.

In Change for Salvation, a hands-on sculpture on display at SDAI as part of the Beyond the Age of Reason exhibition, he uses humor to address the concept of investing in our futures, in either the spiritual or corporeal sense. Our innate curiosity and our urge to play with and respond to technology allow the artist to engage us in a game of personal introspection.  When looking at the world with, in his words, “a child’s eye,” we get the impression that this inanimate object is attempting to communicate with us.  In order to “win” this game, we must receive words of approval from this machine and to get that approval, we must continue to feed it coin after coin in hopes of achieving salvation.