TITLE: Antenna Man
ARTIST: Eric Nordgulen
DATE: 1998
MATERIALS: Aluminum
DIMENSIONS: 11′ x 13′
TYPE: sculpture
Eric Nordgulen, Professor at the Herron School of Art and Design, created Antenna Man (1998) as part of an antenna-inspired series.
The piece is composed of twenty-one curved horizontal bars stacked on a pair of vertical supports rendering a figure that appears part human, part machine, inviting us to wonder where the one ends and the other begins.
If “the perception of sculpture is a physical experience that can become a catalyst for new thoughts and ideas,” as Nordgulen suggests, then what does Antenna Man offer us?
Antennas are machines designed to transmit and receive. As beings increasingly accompanied and augmented by technology, what are we now capable and incapable of transmitting and receiving? What effect might these capacities and incapacities have on our futures as a species?
Nordgulen’s work can be found throughout the country. In Indianapolis, you can see Viewfinders on Massachusetts Avenue and another Antenna Man in Crown Hill Cemetery.
To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_Man_(Nordgulen) , which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”