Twelve-foot steel poles topped with swiveling holographic arms make up Rainbow Machine, American artist Joseph Burlini's sculpture on the Marquette campus in downtown Milwaukee. Four tall steel poles rise here; each pole stands twelve feet tall and carries a six-foot arm on each side that swivels at its center. The faces of those arms are covered with holographic decals that catch and scatter light, color, and motion as the arms turn.
The poles are oriented toward the Marquette Interchange and sit a short distance from the entrance of the Haggerty Museum of Art, so their changing reflections activate the area between interchange and museum. Burlini fabricated the work in 1993, and after an earlier installation on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Rainbow Machine arrived on this campus in 2000. Burlini trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and keeps a studio in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
Stand here awhile and let the swiveling arms and their shifting rainbows calibrate your pace; notice how each six-foot sweep refracts sunlight and urban motion. Notice the holographic arms swiveling toward the Marquette Interchange, with the Haggerty Museum entrance just a short distance away.