Chris Burden's Big City Dreams

Metropolis II is a large-scale kinetic sculpture inspired by a Los Angeles of the future, with traffic moving at frenetic speeds.

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Chris Burden is a Los Angeles-based international artist earlier known for his life-threatening projects. As a young man, he has shot, electrocuted, cut, and nearly drowned himself in the name of his craft. He now makes large-scale artworks that investigate life in the urban context.

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Burden did not specifically model any of the buildings to existing structures in the real world. “We just make mock-ups out of cardboard, make big piles of them and decide which one to use,” says the artist.

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Different types of buildings abound in Metropolis II. Each was constructed with the help of a dedicated assistant that specialized either in wood blocks, houses of cards, glass and tile, and other materials.

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An Eames-like house of cards could often be seen in various buildings around the little city.

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1,100 specially designed mini cars zip and whiz through the city’s plastic roads at 240-scale-miles per hour.

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Approximately 100,000 cars pass through the sculpture every hour.

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The moment when cars enter a curve is called a “brush.” It is a crucial moment in the kinetic sculpture, when cars are most likely to tumble off track. In answer to this, the artist and his team constructed the curves in such a way that it touches the rims of the wheels, adding friction and subtly slowing the cars down.

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A sculpture as large as this isn’t without its problems. To ensure things are kept smooth, an operator stands in the middle of the frenetic sculpture. Rich Sandomeno, one of the original assistants who saw the project from birth to execution, says, “There are a million different variables with all moving parts. An operator helps correct any inconsistencies. Occasionally, cars turn up side down or hop off the track.”

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The frenzy of cars runs on gravity, save for three conveyor belts set right in the middle of the exhibition. Magnets on the conveyor belts attract the magnets inside the cars and help pull them up a steep incline, where they are released down into the intricate system of eighteen roadways weaving in and out of the tiny city. 

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