The sculpture looks like a missile about to be launched but whose operation was aborted. The glistening aluminum and the pinkish flesh-colored Perspex elements create a chilling hybrid of body/machine, melding live and inanimate. The sculpture moves in set intervals of 30 seconds of operation followed by a four-minute rest: the stop interval is relatively long compared to the movement. Rubinstein's 4:30' also hints at American avant-garde musician John Cage's composition 4:33 (1952). Scored for several musical instruments that are silent for four minutes and 33 seconds, the piece makes the audience aware of sounds both inside and outside the hall. In Rubinstein's work, it is the cessation that emphasizes the violence and folly in the action simulating preparing to fire.