Chris Eckert: Art & Life is a site-specific installation by the artist in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the ICA.

Two large machines skim the Internet for sentences. One machine searches for comments about art, the other searches for remarks on life. Each machine slowly writes the collected sentences on translucent screens filling both front windows at the ICA during the six-month installation. The written sentences are executed in various styles of handwriting belonging to friends of Eckert and the ICA. As the end of the installation approaches, the machine collecting sentences about art scribbles large block letters forming “Ars Longa” while the machine searching for sentences relating to life scribbles “Vita Brevis.” The phrase will be fully realized on June 20th during the ICA’s 40th anniversary celebration. LigoranoReese’s Ars Longa, Vita Brevis ice sculpture that will melt away outside the ICA on the same date.

Chris Eckert is a California-based artist who uses technology and machinery—media that are often thought of as cold and impersonal—as vehicles for exploration and introspection. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including venues in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland and Japan. In 2018 Eckert’s work was exhibited in a solo exhibition at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art entitled Privacy Not Included. Eckert received his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University and his MFA from San Jose State University.