Gary Keown

Vacation Incorporated
1996

Wood, motors, hardware, ocean sounds, electronic motion sensor, halogen floodlight, waves, Ken and Barbie dolls.

Kinetic Sculpture

58.5x46x22"

Gary Keown uses lights, sounds, and motorized elements to animate his humorous sculptural examinations of American social mores. The workbenchlike Vacation Incorporated uses a motion sensor linked to ocean sounds, a wave machine, a halogen spotlight, and motors controlling Barbie and Ken dolls; the Surrealist openness and craftlike accessibility of the work to a variety of meanings only enhance the impact of Keown’s assertion that “social commentary is the content behind the work.”