Ganson was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1955. He has an older sister, Ellen Ford and a younger brother, Richard Ganson. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1978. In 1987 he married Rocky Tomascoff and they had one son, Cory. In 2013, Ganson married photographer . They currently live in the Chicago area.
Work
Ganson describes his work as a cross between mechanical engineering and choreography. His sculptures have been called "gestural, humorous, evocative, and introspective", or "Ingenious. Philosophical. Witty". Some of his extremely elaborate machines have one very simple function, such as elegantly anointing themselves with lubricating oil scooped up from a pan, or causing a chair to chaotically bounce around a toy cat. Other machines do nothing at all but move in a visually fascinating manner, such as a toy chair that suddenly assembles from small sticks and planks of wood. Though some critics read deeply philosophical meaning into these works, Ganson's machines also exhibit a childlike, playful side. One of his constructions is a set of wire gears tethered to a chicken's wishbone, equipped with miniature spikes and made to "walk" back and forth along a miniature roadway. This curious apparatus appeared in "Muffy's Art Attack", an episode of the animated children's series Arthur, where it was compared to "the tragicomic works of Samuel Beckett – a tiny figure forever yoked to its burden of absurdity". Ganson and his wife, Chehalis Hegner, create collaborative works such as "He and She," a kinetic sculpture that interacts with a photograph where a mechanical arm with a feather at the end of it tenderly caresses the toes of the female figure seated on a table. In addition to his artistic productions, Ganson is also the inventor of Toobers & Zots, a commercial toy-set consisting of bendable foam pieces in abstract shapes that can be assembled into almost anything. He has also been involved in other toy designs.
Friday After Thanksgiving
Since 1999, Ganson has been the emcee of the annual "Friday After Thanksgiving" competition sponsored by the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Teams of contestants construct elaborate Rube Goldberg style chain-reaction machines on tables arranged around a large gymnasium. Each apparatus is linked by a string to its predecessor and successor machine. The initial string is ceremonially pulled, and the ensuing events are videotaped in closeup, and simultaneously projected on large screens for viewing by the live audience. After the entire cascade of events has finished, prizes are then awarded in various categories and age levels. Videos from several previous years' contests are viewable on the MIT Museum website. In a variation, the competition has used a single golf ball which is passed from one complex mechanism to the next. The entire event was inspired in 1997, when Ganson saw the film The Way Things Go, by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss, which portrayed an elaborate chain reaction setup, constructed using ordinary household items and materials. The next year, Ganson staged such an event and filmed it for the MIT Museum, and in 1999 he opened up the event to team competition.
