MDW Micro Meditation: Jeff Austin

By Elliott Mickleburgh

Jeff Austin, Untitled, 2012

Sentient architecture seems like the subject matter of science fiction but Jeff Austin’s contribution to the Make Space booth says otherwise. Materials from the site are composed into a delicate organic framework: metal wires and poles become ribs, stones mimic vital organs, threads resemble a complex network of veins and nerves. The balancing act these sculptural components find themselves in presents a kind of equilibrium albeit a vulnerable one. I get the sense that the heavy footsteps of an intoxicated patron could knock Austin’s piece out of homeostasis and into a terminal condition. And the metal bone that leads through the ceiling? Somewhere in a dark boiler room this architectural organism is replicating.