The Helium Stockpile, 2004
In collaboration with Erik and Martin Demain, mathematicians and computer scientists at MIT. Wood, hinges, yellow rubber, gloves, text. Exhibited at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Cambridge, MA, and the Chicago Cultural Center.
This piece includes 1000 poplar blocks hinged in a single continuous pathway that can be folded into a solid mass, or unfolded into a flat field. The fold was designed by Erik Demaine at MIT. Small folded flyers linked the folding blocks to the Federal Helium Stockpile outside Amarillo Texas, a little-known resource where the valuable inert gas owned by U.S. citizens is stored under pressure inside a porous rock formation.