“A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” Donna Haraway

Melrose Botanical Garden is thrilled to announce our 3rd show, Bachelor Machines, featuring new work by Sarah Sitkin & David Kasprzak, a sculpture by Kit Meadows, and the most recent animation by David Bayus. Join us as we explore the technology of humanity in a mesmerizing journey through the landscapes of the future and the past.

Melrose Botanical Garden is thrilled to present the realm of “Bachelor Machines,” a group exhibition that explores the technology of humanity in a mesmerizing journey through the landscapes and legends of the future and the past. Featuring three mixed-media pieces by four artists, this cyber dystopian showcase unveils a semi-autonomous wandering apple, an enigmatic animation, and a electromechanical bionic sculpture.

In the thrilling realm of futuristic innovation, the Cosmic Crisp apple emerges as a spectacular emblem of our dominion over the natural world. Its very name, “Cosmic,” echoes the grandeur of the universe, a nod to the stellar-like lenticels on its skin, a feat of our deliberate genetic artistry. This apple transcends mere agriculture; it is a celestial marvel, crafted by human hands. The term “Crisp” is a tribute to the textural nirvana achieved through our scientific acumen, presenting a crunch that resonates with the ethos of advanced technology. This apple is not just cultivated; it is meticulously designed, standing as a harbinger of an epoch where the melding of technology and biology ushers in an age of enhanced existence. The Cosmic Crisp is not just a fruit; it’s a harbinger of a new dawn, a testament to our ability to reshape life itself to mirror a vision of perfected, optimized existence.

Thank You, Saint Anthony is a new video made during the Recology Artist in Residence Program. Inspired by the rhyming Catholic prayer: “Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and needs to be found!” Often spoken by Bayus’s grandmother when looking for something, the incantation acts as

the conceptual foundation for his residency at Recology. In his animation, Bayus creates a theatrical series of beach-side vignettes where life emerges anew from a primordial ocean of synthetic fibers, micro plastics, and lost objects. As evolving biomass encroaches the coastline, a newly formed sentience–sitting in the middle of a new eden–has the privilege to be the first of its kind to get the blues. Focusing on one single object sourced from the San Francisco waste stream, Bayus explores the anthropomorphic distinctions between a “found” and a “saved” object, between serendipity and salvation, and between evolution and intelligent design.

Hands In Water is a mechanical bionic sculpture that considers the ways the human body must rely on technol-ogy and conversely, how technology must rely upon the human body. It speaks to sickness or changes in the physical body and where one can find salvation in small gestures of caring for oneself. Made from machine milled aluminum & stainless steel, polycarbonate, UV resin, glass, plywood, it permits the viewer access to a machine that is overbuilt but also extremely vulnerable. It avoids the cruel and unforgiving pitfalls of the galvanic scale with anxious arrangement of metals and plastics, a negotiation amid the damaged relationship between the material and the theoretical.