Carl Cheng: Research and Development
By HG Masters
CARL CHENG, Erosion Machine No. 4, 1969, Plexiglass, metal racks and fittings, plastic, water pump, LED lights, black light, pebbles, four erosion rocks, and wood base, 38.1 × 63.5 × 22.86 cm. All images courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles.
In 1969, the John Doe Co. of Santa Monica, California, released the first in its line of “nature products”: Erosion Machine, a yellow, hi-tech-looking, microwave-size appliance. A switch on its exterior activates a pump inside one of its two chambers, and, under the rays of a black light, a pressurized stream of water wears down a “human rock”—a pile of natural sediment mixed with plastic chips—in an artificial simulation of water’s sculptural effects on a solid mass. According to the device’s inventor and the company’s founder, artist Carl Cheng, the idea behind this machine was to “model nature, its processes and effects for a future environment that may be completely made by humans.” In brochures of the time, John Doe Co. advertised a range of other products in development, from an Ecological Systems Comparator to a Table Model Specimen Viewer, and a 163 Early Warning System that responded to weather reports with an “integral dual projection . . . with audio synchronization.” Three years later, John Doe Co. debuted its venus flytrap cultivator, Supply & Demand (1972), a plexiglass-encased, humidity-regulated bed of earth with plants being fed insects through a tube; resembling a hi-fi stereo system, it sits on a pedestal topped with artificial grass.
