''Rainbow Machine'' is a

public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

work by American artist Joseph Burlini, located on the campus of

Marquette University Marquette University () is a private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of the diocese of M ...

in downtown

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

Description

The work consists of four tall steel poles affixed with moving

holographic Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...

arms. Each pole is 12 feet tall and has a six-foot arm on each side that swivels at the center point. The face of each arm is covered with a holographic decal that reflects light, color and motion as the arm moves. The work is oriented toward the Marquette Interchange a short distance from the entrance of the Haggerty Museum of Art.

History

While fabricated in 1993, ''Rainbow Machine'' was not installed in Milwaukee until 2000. According to the Haggerty Art Museum, it was previously installed on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Artist

Burlini is a graduate of the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

and maintains a studio in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

References

1993 sculptures Holography Marquette University Outdoor sculptures in Milwaukee {{Public-art-stub