Joseph Stewart Studio

Charles Gaines's Greenhouse is a monumental architectural work: a transparent, steel-framed cylinder twelve feet tall and sixteen feet in diameter, enclosing three cast stainless-steel trees. Over a ninety-minute sequence, the chamber gradually fills with fog and clears as synchronized lighting transitions unfold.

Working from an architectural rendering and artistic objectives supplied by Gaines's studio, Joseph Stewart Studio fabricated the architectural structure, coordinating production and directing specialist fabricators.

The studio also developed the environmental strategy, electronics, and control systems. The system must contain the fog without encouraging mold growth during extended exhibition periods. Multiple approaches to recirculation and filtration were tested to clear the chamber without releasing fog into the museum. Final installation, calibration, and timing of the environmental sequences were completed on site in collaboration with Gaines's studio.

Alongside the sculpture, the studio developed a companion software installation that continuously downloads climate datasets and transforms them into an abstract visualization across two large-format displays. Gaines's studio selected the initial visualization approach; Joseph Stewart Studio developed the complete pipeline, from data acquisition through visual design and implementation.

Jean Dupuy's Cone Pyramid (Heart Beats Dust), originally created in 1968, turns a visitor's heartbeat into movement. A stethoscope microphone held against the chest causes red pigment to dance on a thin rubber membrane in time with each heartbeat, illuminated by a cone of light inside an enclosed chamber.

When curator Nancy Perloff prepared the Getty exhibition, no surviving version of the work could be operated reliably enough for sustained public presentation. The Getty Research Institute commissioned an exhibition reproduction.

Joseph Stewart Studio collaborated with conservator Christine Frohnert, whose documentation of the definitive version at the Emily Harvey Foundation included detailed measurements, drawings, and material research.

Working from this documentation, the studio fabricated the cabinet and engineered an updated operating system for museum use. The studio and Frohnert worked closely on membrane thickness, pigment movement, and lighting quality to match the proportions, behavior, and visual character of the historical work.

Exhibition within the Getty Research Institute's library galleries imposed a further constraint: airborne pigment must remain completely contained without altering the characteristic visual effect.

Sean Raspet's Screen incorporates an aestheticized stem cell incubator that maintains culture conditions while allowing visitors to see the culture tubes and living retinal organoids. Unlike opaque commercial incubators, its transparent enclosure presents the living material within Empty Gallery's “black cube” exhibition environment.

Joseph Stewart Studio designed and fabricated the complete incubation system, including the enclosure, electronics, embedded software, environmental controls, and scientific-grade sensing. The incubator regulates temperature and humidity and maintains a target CO₂ concentration of 5%.

Curator Aram Moshayedi conceived Lifes as a gesamtkunstwerk—an exhibition in which individual artworks form components of a single, hour-long composition.

Joseph Stewart Studio designed and implemented a centralized control system that synchronized multichannel video installations, eighteen-channel spatialized audio, and kinetic artworks. Custom software provided a single interface for networked control of BrightSign players and the other exhibition systems.

Designed for daily museum operation, the system automated the fixed sequence and accommodated varying live-performance configurations.

For Longevity Buns, Parker Ito wanted to modify flatbed scanners to run lighting sequences that illuminate various sculptures placed on their beds. The commercial scanners produced only fixed white illumination and operated at a single scanning speed, requiring new electronics and software to achieve the movement and lighting behavior he specified.

Joseph Stewart Studio replaced the control electronics and lighting while retaining the original mechanical carriage assemblies, stepper motors, and housings. Custom circuit boards match the physical geometry of the originals to fit within the existing enclosures. Pixel-addressable LEDs, embedded control electronics, and software provide control over carriage position, speed, and lighting choreography. The modified scanners retain their familiar appearance and have operated for extended periods across multiple exhibitions.