earth engines

The sign on the wall at Johansson Projects told me to turn the knob, so I did, at first tentatively and then when nothing happened with a little more gusto.  Oliver DiCicco's sculpture Sirens sprang into life, and five sets of curved metal arms slowly swayed to and fro and sighed a song of longing.  Fully susceptible as I am to anything that takes its name from myth I of course found myself appropriately entranced.  The piece is part of the current two-person show at Johansson Projects entitled Earth Engines, and DiCicco also has another wonderful construction called Anemone on display, a large kinetic sea-creature that is powered in part by magnets and which is activated when you touch the ring around its center.  The watery theme (as well as a similar flair for the dramatic) continues in Barry Underwood's bewitching staged photographs in which he inserts mysterious light sources into otherwise natural settings.  Underwood was an artist-in-residence at the Headlands earlier this year, and I recognized some familiar stretches of beach and grassy hill in the images in the gallery.  In his photos a school of LED fish swim just under the surface of a lake, a fiery red fissure opens down the center of a trail, multicolored sprites infest an old parade field.  And as beautiful as Underwood's photographs look in the gallery, I would also love to see his interventions outdoors where he actually creates them.  I'm always looking for an excuse to go stumbling around the beach at night.