Ed Osborn, assistant professor of visual art, is currently exihibiting his latest work, a sound sculpture titled “Night-Sea Music,” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The piece, a kinetic sound work that is made up of tiny motors, rubber hoses, electronics, and music boxes, is on view through November 4. Osborn describes his inspiration for the sculpture on his website: “The piece is titled after a John Barth story, Night-Sea Journey, which is narrated by a confused and not altogether enthusiastic single spermatozoa on its journey in search of ... well, something (the narrator is not very clear on the concept). The twisting and spasmodic movements of the piece allude to those tiny twitching travelers whose brief existence is a suicidal mission to carry information through a difficult environment. The music boxes all play the old folk tune “The Merry Widow,” which serves as a wink and a nod toward the overwhelmingly futile energies expended by all those determined sperm.”