Ego Machine was created as part of an ongoing inquiry into mechanisms of power and the ways they take shape in the body and in our movement through space.

 

The sculpture features two balloons that inflate and deflate at shifting intervals, appearing like amorphous, disproportionate organs in a soft pink. Their slow expansion and collapse create a tension between the natural and the mechanical. At times they resemble breathing human organs or plants that grow and wither, at others, their sagging forms evoke punching bags bodies meant to absorb impact. These motions hint at familiar bodily reflexes: standing tall, defending, attacking, swelling with force, then softening into release.

 

In the moments of collapse when fullness gives way to slackness vulnerability emerges, along with another form of strength. The mechanism animating the balloons echoes emotional cycles of arousal, release, elevation, and fall. The work ultimately asks whether we operate the mechanism, or whether it is the one shaping our gestures, reactions, and relationships?