Robert Smithson’s Honeymoon Machine (1964) is a wall-mounted mixed-media assemblage that reflects his engagement with popular culture's representations of sexuality and technological imagery. The work incorporates photographic imagery of a pin-up female figure, producing a fusion of body and machine. Wires and circuitry connect the figure to a device resembling a generator, suggesting a transfer of energy and blurring distinctions between organic and industrial systems.

As a child Robert Smithson created a personal museum of natural history in the basement of his family home. This early interest in science, geography, and museums influenced many of Smithson’s artworks throughout his life. Between 1961 and 1963, Smithson created a series of collages showing evolving amphibians and dinosaurs, developing out of this childhood interest in natural history museums. Algae, algae combines collage turtles with the use of language as a visual tool, its accumulation of text suggesting the movement of the sea's dark green waves.