By Patrick McDonagh

Hack Cycle has taken over Somerville’s Nave Art Gallery. The show is the product of artist and curator Melissa Glick’s call to artists months prior opening reception, looking for inventive use of recycled technology and material otherwise heading for landfill.

A quick scan of the gallery confirms Glick found the artists she was looking for. Reclaimed Raytheon materials now hang as wall fixtures, dissected and repurposed with meticulous intention. Copper coated wires and picked apart motherboards form together with Mod Podge clear coat. Solid state drives are now matching sets of jewelry. Teapot and pressure gauge turned lunar rover. Lawnmower wheels, chunky keyboard keys and flip phone cases make the likeness of a miniature tricycle.

Nave Gallery’s Hack Cycle is a nostalgia inducing compilation of obsolete technology, repurposed for both social statement and aesthetic pleasure. Artists and enthusiasts mingled at the gallery’s June 11 opening reception, trading origin stories of their repurposed creations.

“I built a giant 3 foot by 6 foot steel rat trap that actually works. It is like lethal,” artist Eric D. Legacy discusses his art as social statements that draw parallel to controversy. “One of the things that happened during the Big Dig when they dug those holes is that rats just flew out. Rats pretty much invaded the city when they dug those channels for those tunnels,” Legacy said, regarding tunnel development of Boston’s Fort Point Channel district. “At the same time the artists were being forced out of their buildings, so I drew a parallel between the rats and artists.” The padlocked trap was chained to post offices, Jersey-barriers, and bridges before finding a more hospitable home on the lawn of the Nave Gallery Annex. “It is completely still working,” but Legacy reassures, “I have it locked, a big padlock on the catch which I always do.”

Legacy’s piece on display and for sale at the Hack Cycle show looks like an explosive robotic creature that might wheel its way into a giant rat trap. An interior bulb illuminates the repurposed coffee pot and attached translucent pressure gauge, an early career creation Legacy has been updating since the mid 90’s. Legacy’s showpiece, named Electric General, is the inspiration of a coin activated lunar rover featured in the Wallace and Gromit short film A Grand Day Out. Many of the parts used to make the piece were manufactured by the company General Electric, which means the Electric General is a unique recycled pun.

Recorded music emanates from underneath the cushion of a dining room chair, adjacent to the Electric General. Confusion as to why a chair is playing John Lee Hooker’s blues music subsides after artist Tristan Roland’s explanation of his show piece, the Music Box. “This piece originated in Detroit,” Tristan said. “It has a lot to do with Blues. It is a reclaimed chair, essentially waste. I found it when I was in Detroit. The idea is to find wasted objects and give them new life and new meaning. Originally, the piece was a dining chair and a portable record player. For me it was important to take these objects, being in Detroit at the time, and morph them into something new, creative, and usable. A lot of my work is about that. This particular project, the Music Box, is essentially about a character that is not there, so the object speaks to that character and vibe of that period.”

Roland, a carpenter by trade, utilizes workshop space after shop closing to meld his artistry with interior design. Roland’s learned interest in the arts originated with a host family in Germany, as guest and apprentice in graphic design. After high school apprenticeship in Germany and University undergraduate degree in London, Roland traveled to Detroit for a Masters at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Masters study in Detroit has major influence on Roland’s work. “It [Detroit] offers something different, unique. You can start over essentially. My Master’s program was definitely a big influence for me. Art design and media brought me into Detroit. That was kind of the beginning of my sculptural statement pieces; putting my work into process. Detroit made me think outside the box and about the user.” Roland describes Detroit as a cache of potentially reusable material for artists. The Music Box, on display at Nave Gallery’s Hack Cycle, is fully functioning as a dining room seat with a portable record player concealed in the seat base.

Roland’s seat, and complementary Detroit blues playing within it, adding an element of furniture design to curators Melissa Glick’s show theme. Glick’s art is featured on the gallery wall, twenty-four pieces in total, all tech relics of her father’s employment at a major American defense contractor. “My dad worked at Raytheon for like 40 years. He always used to bring junk home,” Glick recalls. “My dad loved to save stuff. He was a little bit of a hoarder. I inherited it from him. In fact, after he passed away it really spurred me on.” Glick points out pieces containing her father’s science magazines, now repurposed as sculptural wall art. She hosts workshops at the Artisan’s Asylum where she disassembles computer parts and creates mixed media collages.

Fifteen artists are featured at the show currently running through July 12 at the Nave Gallery, 155 Powderhouse Boulevard in Somerville, including a 9-year-old’s disassembled camera creations.

~Photos courtesy of Nave Gallery and Patrick McDonagh.