Corpus Machina
6’ x 16’ x 24’
Steel, plastic, fabric, rock, water, magnesium sulfate, salt, and body residue
2017
2017 Open Studio Fellow
Artist Statement
This project at Franconia Sculpture Park is part of a continued pursuit for phenomenal experiences. Corpus Machina is a sensory deprivation chamber that grows crystalline structures from my body’s residue mixed with water, sodium, and magnesium sulfate. In this place remains a self-portrait. Using fire and rocks to heat a bath of hyper-saturated salt water, I floated in this chamber for several hours at a time during the summer of 2017. Immersed in the water I was weightless, deaf, and blind to the world around me. Part of me remains in these rocks, this water, these walls, and this earth. If our body places us in this world, opening us to what we think and know, how do we determine the boundaries of our perception? For some, the body is a thing wrapped tight to the jugular. For others, the body is a breathing lung; an organ which knows itself only through inhales and exhales. I want to be this breathing lung.
Nick Rivers
Born: St. Paul, MN, USA, 1983
Resides: St. Paul, MN, USA
Education
MFA, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, 2016
BLA in Culture, Metropolitan State University, 2013