Somewhere in the MIT Museum, a tiny motor spins at 200 revolutions per minute. The motor drives a chain of 12 gears, each turning 50 times slower than the one preceding it. By the time that motion reaches the final gear, it turns so slowly that it won’t complete a full rotation for more than 2 trillion years—for reference, the universe is about 14 billion years old.

Longtime kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson bolted this time-bending machine into a block of concrete. It was engineered, with precision, to accomplish absolutely nothing.

The intricate creation is called “Machine with Concrete,” and it offers as good an introduction to Ganson as you’ll find. For nearly five decades, the sculptor has built kinetic machines that incorporate real movement into their design to do the exact opposite of what machines were originally designed to do. Ganson’s machines do not increase output or simplify repetitive tasks. Instead, they move in ways that feel unmistakably alive.

“I was always more interested in what could be expressed by something in motion or transition, and the subtle manner in which things move [and] gesture,” he explained in an email to Gizmodo.

Ganson once built a wishbone that walked itself across the table. Another time, he decided to create a yellow chair that flies apart and reassembles itself. One piece—the aptly named “Machine with Oil”—simply oils its own gears over and over again, conceivably until the end of time.

The sculptor earned his BFA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978 and began creating absurdist machines the year before he graduated.

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