--- title: Internal Combustion | Robert Costanza --- [Skip to content](https://costanzaart.com/internal-combustion#main-content) # Contemporary Art Created by Robert Costanza # "Internal Combustion"  NOMAD 2026, Torrance Art Museum   **INTERNAL COMBUSTION** My work begins with the skeleton, our first infrastructure. Skeletons, vascular systems, root networks, rivers, and reefs are examples of infrastructures crafted by nature to support life. Long before we build roads, bridges, schools, electrical grids, or cities, nature builds the structure that allows us to stand, move, and sustain ourselves with food, water, and air. *Our skeletal bones literally are minerals from the earth transformed into structure.* Our ancestors created infrastructures to enhance their lives. As the generations accumulated, these infrastructures improved, or were considered obsolete and abandoned. My work contemplates the sacrifices and efforts that countless generations poured into building societies’ infrastructures. I marvel at the different expressions of natural and human-made infrastructures, and the interplay between these two forms of creative energies. **Torrance Art Museums’ NOMAD 2026 exhibition** Two skeletal figures inhabit a quiet moment. The "organs" of the elder are comprised of systems that support the operation of a functioning miniature internal combustion engine integrated into its skeletal structure. Internal combustion engines have become deeply embedded within the infrastructures that sustain modern life. *The steel that forms these figures was once rock.* Transforming that rock into sculpture required mines, mills, transportation networks, and countless people—an interconnected infrastructure that depends largely upon internal combustion engines. The installation presents an engine as one organ within a larger collection of fuel, electrical, and pneumatic structures. Fuel and air enter the engine. Emerging from this transformation are mechanical power, heat, and a stream of hot combustion gases—the products of a process that has profoundly shaped the modern world. Like all living and mechanical systems, the engine and it’s organs depend upon relationships beyond itself. Fuel, air, electrical power, and cooling are needed to sustain the operation of this infrastructure. Like all living and mechanical systems, the engine depends upon relationships beyond itself. No energetic transformation exists in isolation. *Every energetic transformation is sustained by, and ultimately returns something to, the larger ecological systems of which it is a part.* What is required to bring these systems into existence, and what is required to sustain them? Whom do these infrastructures serve, and how do they shape the lives of those who depend upon them? Do they exist in balance with the biosphere that sustains them?  From this simple functional system, embedded within a skeletal infrastructure, we can begin to contemplate the countless infrastructures humanity and nature has created.   ## Internal Combustion Process Photos   - ![IMG_1419](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_1419.jpg?width=4032&height=3024&name=IMG_1419.jpg) The sub-scale fixture for neck weld - ![IMG_2105](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_2105.jpeg?width=3024&height=4032&name=IMG_2105.jpeg) Getting angles correct for the pelvis - ![IMG_2125](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_2125.jpeg?width=3024&height=4032&name=IMG_2125.jpeg) Spine/pelvis THE critical juncture - ![IMG_E7B53C74-D8E0-4074-85C3-26A6E4FF6F88](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_E7B53C74-D8E0-4074-85C3-26A6E4FF6F88.jpeg?width=3024&height=4032&name=IMG_E7B53C74-D8E0-4074-85C3-26A6E4FF6F88.jpeg) Femurs tied into pelvis - ![IMG_BDCCF899-EB4E-480A-B180-EB56CB8F38A9](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_BDCCF899-EB4E-480A-B180-EB56CB8F38A9.jpg?width=4032&height=3024&name=IMG_BDCCF899-EB4E-480A-B180-EB56CB8F38A9.jpg) Lots to learn w first figure - ![BD6C2009-B17A-4B90-8EB2-B66603AFCEE1_1_105_c](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/BD6C2009-B17A-4B90-8EB2-B66603AFCEE1_1_105_c.jpeg?width=768&height=1024&name=BD6C2009-B17A-4B90-8EB2-B66603AFCEE1_1_105_c.jpeg) Created weld booth for summer (weld class ended) - ![IMG_2909](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_2909.jpeg?width=3024&height=4032&name=IMG_2909.jpeg) Testing engine throttle - ![IMG_1179](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/IMG_1179.jpg?width=2572&height=1885&name=IMG_1179.jpg) Engine functionally tested B4 install - ![E52B368F-5482-4820-90F7-4E1E7B7B87A3_1_105_c](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/E52B368F-5482-4820-90F7-4E1E7B7B87A3_1_105_c.jpeg?width=1024&height=768&name=E52B368F-5482-4820-90F7-4E1E7B7B87A3_1_105_c.jpeg) Feet and hands were gas brazed [![z IMG_8906-1](https://costanzaart.com/hs-fs/hubfs/z%20IMG_8906-1.jpg?width=251&height=400&name=z%20IMG_8906-1.jpg "z IMG_8906-1")](https://costanzaart.com/portfolio) ### Explore More Art (click on) ### Quantum Quan Yin ## Contact Artist: [instagram icon](https://www.instagram.com/costanza_artstudio/) --- # Costanza Art Los Angeles County, California Copyright © 2025, Rocket Buddha Art