Lawn Chair and Carnivorous Contraptions

The Lawn Chair sculpture was exhibited with Carnivorous Contraptions in an enclosed living room which was created with Denise King at the Exploratorium Art & Science Museum of San Francisco, CA. The installation was part of a group show, Chlorophilia, curated by Phil Ross in 2002. Visitors were invited to first use Denise’s Carnivorous Contraptions to catch flies flying around the enclosure. Once caught in the vacuum contraption, the machine was placed under the magnifying image station and monitor. The visitor could then sit comfortably in the Lawn Chair and watch the carnivorous plant, within the contraption, devour their recent catch of flies.

Show description: Chlorophilia – the love of plants – takes unexpected twists and turns in an evening of experimental installations by Bay Area Artists, scientists, and horticulturists. Questioning our complex assumptions regarding nature, technology, esthetics, and bioethics, these installations explore the point at which the human love of living shifts from curious admiration to manipulative alteration, producing hybrids between the natural and the artificial that are both fascinating and unsettling.