Barbara A Kieft Accelerator ArtSpace

Another day in suburbia with nothing to do lead us to the Barbara A Keift Accelerator ArtSpace. There was purportedly an interesting exhibit that I was excited to see. On par with my sis in laws planning skills we showed up and the door was locked and no one was around. Well, perfect.
The building itself looks like a very small warehouse. There is parking in the front and in the back. The door makes it clear there was at one time a working particle accelerator on the premises. The intercom sign next to the door is just a tease, there is no intercom, and no windows. We joked around about how horrible my sister in laws planning skills are and then decided to leave. (I decided to force Renita to come back with me the following weekend when we meet for coffee, luckily for Renita it won’t come to that). We went back after lunch and they were open! Woo hoo!
The interior looks like a small warehouse too, with a giant 50s era-​looking machine on one side of the room. As art galleries go, it’s pretty small. As particle accelerators go, it’s pretty cool. The current exhibit, the Heartbeat Carillon was really interesting. As someone with a heart condition, I was excited to hear how my heartbeat would sound reverberating around a brick and mortar room after pealing off a chime in the corner. The chorus of our heartbeats was fascinating.
I would gladly go back to the Accelerator ArtSpace for future exhibits. It’s worth a visit just to check out the Kevatron accelerator actually. It was a working atom smasher built at UIC back in 1934. In the 60s it was given to Elmhurst College where it spent some useful time making nerds happy. It’s been out of work since the mid 80s but is still an impressive and interesting sight (for us nerds at least).