Iris Adler says it takes her about four months, on and off, to build a human-looking heart or brain. She makes them out of found objects, electrical devices from mail-order catalogs, and parts from boom boxes, tape recorders, speakers, and clocks.
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Adler isn’t a mad scientist. She’s an artist who builds hearts and brains for her kinetic sculptures, which are often adorned with religious symbols. When they’re plugged in “blood” flows through tubes, lids open and close, figures move, colored lights blink, brains glow, hearts throb, and machines buzz, beep, and rumble, often to the accompaniment of tinkling music box tunes.
To make her hearts look realistic, Adler says she studied still photos of heart operations and hooked up with hospitals that gave her broken or discarded equipment, like respiratory tubing and valves. “I’d take them home and play with them,” she says. “I was always trying to figure out what went where, so if a doctor looked at a heart it would look right. After you know what tubes go where, then you can fool around and make [the organ] look odd.”
