Plastic Rain

Mike Miller

Mixed Media Installation

    The installation plastic rain is part of a series of pieces that deal with the interface between “nature and machine”. The dripping water and the sound of the drips represents the “natural” rain drops. All of the rest of the piece represents the “man-made machine”. The fake grass/astro-turf carpet with aluminum foil pie pans is the “machine man-made” lawn/fields and ponds. The neon yellow string and zip ties holding up the the black hydroponic tubing is the “machine” sky, and the black tubing is the “machine” rain clouds. The black garden hose and manifold valve is a part of the rain cloud “machine” too. The flexible plastic arms that move when drops of water hit them represent the energy that man extracts from natural sources to make our machines work. The aluminum foil covered ladder is the access for maintenance on the man-made rain clouds. As in our culture the components of the “machine” portion of the installation tend to overshadow the “natural” water drops, but the sound component of the drips and our emotional response to that sound brings the piece back into a healthy balance between “natural” and “machine”. Which is the metaphor of this piece; if we wish to have a healthy culture we need to keep the “natural and the machine" in balance.