DISCO
1981
48 in x 120 in x 120 in
Wood, Automobile Transmission, Wheeled Castors, Kitchen Tiles
Currently in the collection of the Artist
"Disco is an interactive piece whose mechanics will probably baffle many viewers, as they did me...Somehow, when you stand on the disc, push forward against the roughly waist-high bamboo pole and walk forward, the disc spins in the opposite direction so that you end up making no forward progress, regardless of how fast you walk." ... Tom Patterson, The Winston-Salem Journal.
"With Norman Tuck's sculpture Disco, children can see what it's like to walk forward and move backward simultaneously. (It doesn't feel like dancing)." .... Delcie Leimbach, The New York Times
"The result is almost instant confusion and, occasionally, a slight case of motion sickness." ... - Pat Craig, The Contra Costa Times
A self-propelled merry-go-round, Disco uses an automobile transmission with an input shaft connected to the gallery floor, a housing mounted onto a large wheeled disk, and an upper shaft attached to a wooden cross piece. As you press against the cross piece, the gears within the transmission transfer your forward energy into a force which moves against you, to reverse your forward progress.
PAST EXHIBITS:
1999 Art Machines, Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul.
1998 Art Machines, The Discovery Center of Idaho, Boise, ID.
1996 Art Machines, Inventure Place, Akron, OH.
1994 Art Machines, The Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA.
1994 Art Machines, Liberty Science Center, Jersey City, N.J.
1993 Art Machines, Technorama Museum, Winterthur, Switzerland
1993 Experimenta '93, Villa Gualino, Turin, Italy
1991 Mindless Mechanisms, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, N.C.
1982 Fashion Moda, Bronx, N.Y.
1981 The Coney Island Show, TheConey Island Amusement Park, Brooklyn, NY.
An artist created version of Disco is in the permanent collection of phaeno, Wolfsburg, Germany.
