Stuff We've Made

Glass House Arts makes art! Sometimes the art is interactive, playful, large, or even useful.

Selections below are in roughly chronological order, most recent first.

Uplift

Uplift is a 10 foot tall tensegrity structure created for Burning Man 2025. Constructed from 2" square steel tube and 3/16 stainless steel cables, the series of four cubes seem to float impossibly above the bottom tetrahedron.

Family Can Be Murder

Family Can Be Murder is a living room set, for crows. Filled with puppets, interactive elements, and hidden surprises, Family Can Be Murder is playful, comfortable, and typifies the type of progressive discovery that we love at Glass House Arts.

Bunnyhedron

Bunnyheadron is a four foot tall rabbit, made from faceted Corten steel. On permanent display at Circle Center Gallery in Escondido, CA.

boombox

Boombox is a larger-than-life, off-grid sound system. Available if you need some mobile tunes - reach out!

Paper Flowers

Flowers, made of paper!

Star

Star is a 30 foot stellated dodecahedron. It went to Burning Man and Youtopia in 2024, and was on display at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido in 2025. We are currently looking for additional opportunities to display Star!

The Kiosk

The main structure is a totally standard looking informational kiosk that you might see at the trailhead for a hike. It is accompanied by a national park sign in the classic style that, surprisingly, says “Youtopia National Forest”. That prompts you to take a closer look at the kiosk, and gradually you realize the information there is distorted, incomplete, and unbelievable. Some of the posters satirize burner culture or build on typical trailhead information, but other parts are almost threatening, hinting at a darker story…

Temple of Floating Compression

The Temple of Floating Compression is a large scale tensegrity structure, now installed in Bombay Beach.

Signs

We make a lot of signs, including some with fun interactivity!

Speakers

We have built a number of custom loudspeakers for different art projects, but also because it sounds nice.

Optical Lusions

What you see is what you get.

Useful Things

Sometimes we make useful art, like benches, railings, shelves, etc.

Jigs

We make a lot of jigs as part of our process, and put together they are pretty!

Prototypes

We make a lot of scale models and full-size mockups. CAD and engineering are important, but nothing beats the hands on approach.

Tensegrity Icosahedron

This was a piece we designed and built originally for Burning Man 2022. Currently on display at Circle Center Gallery.

Plasma-GPT

Let a Large Language Model control an industrial plasma cutter - what could go wrong?

Find out.

Talk to Hodgee

Quadcycle

Dada Scientists

The Dada Scientists is an umbrella name for a collection of projects that have included many other collaborators beyond MJ and Colin. The projects undertaken by Dada Scientists include the YOUtopia Census, Cheap Beer tastings, Click this One / Don't Click this One, projects like the Weather Station at YOUtopia, Censuses at other events, ... and surely lots of others I am currently forgetting. Look out for the lab coats in unexpected places.

Read all about it here: https://www.unfalsifiable.info/

Doorbell upgrade

We took the ordinary Ring doorbell our house came with and made it better!
Read about how here: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-Your-Ring-Doorbell-Secure-and-Private/

Surveillance Capitalism Sucks!

Older Projects

Normal House Mural

We invited the public to paint on our previous house, and the results really helped slow down the gentrification of that block a few years. More.

Supported by the San Diego Collaborative Arts Project (SDCAP) and Art Around Adams.

Hydrathereminreverbaphone

This project was pretty much what the component parts of its name sounds like. It was a cacophony. Participants were invited to make all sorts of noise beating on a large piece of sheet metal with a contact mic on it, playing with a bucket of water with a hydrophone in it, a tube, a theremin, all sorts of bizarre noises. This is how we go camping!

Couch Swing

The couch swing is a simple piece that has lived many lives! A simple frame and chains holds a small couch. The frame was originally unpainted, and has been at least 3 different colors since then. And it is currently holding its second couch. We have entirely lost track of how many times it has been built and of all the places it has been. We do love hearing about all the wonderful, poignant, and memorable times so many people have had on the couch swing!

Birthday Fort

MJ's 35's birthday, they made a cardboard fort (at a joint birthday party with a friend. It got pretty big.

MOOT

Many collaborators worked on MOOT (Matter Out Of Time), which has appeared at: YOUtopia (twice), Black Rock City, and Trick or Treat on Maryland Street.
The allows participants to enter the time machine and operate the theremin-drive controls to fly backwards and forwards through time!

Kelp Forest

The kelp forest was a space to chill in. There was comfy "grass" to lay on, and pleasantly colored kelp that would sway and drift above you to watch wave in the breeze. In the evening gentle lights in cool tones would glow; just to sit and be social, not to bright. During the day there was shade over head to provide some coolness and to block the brightness of the midday sun. No smoking in the kelp forest please.

Take a Poncho

Take a Poncho / Leave a Poncho included a "make your own poncho" kit (a pair of scissors), and a strict rule of "no capes!"

The Electric Poncho

So there used to be this event called "Electric Poncho". Colin decided that the name needed to be made real, so hooked an electric fence up to a poncho and put warning signs on it. People saw the "Do Not Touch" and "Electric Shock Risk" signs, decided to touch it anyway, and then were surprised when it shocked them good!

Cozy Danger

Cozy Danger had a name before it had a design. The top level is 60 square feet of cozy foam, with no railing and only treacherous ways up. Below is a twin sized bed swing that barely survived having eleven people on it.

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