My Heart Will Go On

In Jean Dupuy’s 1968 sculpture Cone Pyramid (Heart Beats Dust), a stethoscope is connected to an amplifier mounted beneath a rubber membrane, shooting a bright red pigment into the air with every amplified thump of the heart.

The sculpture is part of Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a Getty exhibition featuring the work of artists and engineers who got together in the late ’60s to make art using the latest technological tools of the day—from infrared light to electronic switches. But now these pieces are over 50 years old. How to reboot Cone Pyramid for present-day audiences to try out on themselves?

Enter Joe Stewart, a fabricator who has helped artists create technologically based artworks for over a decade. “We got permission to create an exhibition copy of the piece where we would basically make a replica of it using contemporary technology in place of aging electronics,” he says.

When you think about what it means to conserve works of art, the painstaking labor of restoring centuries-old paintings might come to mind. But artworks created in the more recent past also need care. Artworks made with analog technologies are especially vulnerable as those technologies become obsolete.

With historical artworks like Cone Pyramid, the artists weren’t necessarily thinking about how to make their work last. Was the meaning of Cone Pyramid to be found in its original materials, or could they be easily replaced?

“You want to think about the life of the artwork in 100 years,” says Stewart. “So what we try to emphasize when we’re making new artworks is documenting where the art is. Is it the actual object, including aging electronics that will need to be repaired in the future? Or is it something that could be remade with contemporary technology if you are faithful to the concept?”

To restore the piece, Stewart painstakingly replicated the sculpture’s original cabinet—with some upgrades—and then gave the piece a “new operating system.” It was a process that required lots of trial and error. In Dupuy’s piece, the dancing pigment was spotlit by a big stage bulb that generated a lot of heat, but this version used new LEDs. Stewart discovered an elegant way of stretching out the membrane on a plate, swapping out the original rubber for a thin sheet of neoprene. The red synthetic dye, Lithol Rubine BK (conventionally used in lip balms) could only be ordered from Germany. Over the course of two years, Stewart experimented in his studio with power amplifiers, equalizers, and the electronic stethoscope. “I had to hack the stethoscope to work with this set-up,” he says.

When Stewart tried it out on himself, the result was magical: ethereal clouds of red dust that pulsated and danced in response to his heart’s natural rhythm. “I had no idea my heart was beating that fast,” Stewart says.

In the end, Stewart was grateful for the opportunity to engage with this piece of the past. The mid-century collaboration between artists and engineers was a unique moment in time, he says. “This piece is not as technologically sophisticated as some of the other E.A.T. pieces,” he says, "But what it highlights is how sometimes really elegant, simple uses of technology can show the power of relationships between engineers and artists."

Try out Cone Pyramid (Heart Beats Dust) on Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30–4:30 pm and Saturdays 4–5 pm. The work is on view as part of the exhibition Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) at the Getty Center through February 23, 2025.