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Fascinating kinetic sculptures. Kinetic art: lectures, exhibitions, consultations - Perfumery workshop Interactive and digital art

Anthony Howe (Anthony Howe, born in 1954 in Salt Lake City, Utah) is an American sculptor who makes autonomous kinetic sculptures driven by wind power.

Having received art education at Cornell University and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Howe began his creative career in 1979-1985, as an artist. He painted pastoral landscapes in a home he built on a remote mountaintop in New Hampshire. His paintings have been exhibited at the Gallery on the Green in Lexington, Massachusetts.

In 1985, Anthony Howe moved to New York and began to work with kinetic sculptures. In 1994, he moved to Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago (Washington), where he again builds a house for himself and opens his own gallery. Howe's work became widely known in the late 1990s.

“For the past 17 years, I have been creating autonomous kinetic sculptures that interact with wind and light. environment. I am trying to create objects, appearance which resemble low-tech sci-fi equipment, astronomical or microbiological models. The sculptures are primarily made of stainless steel, driven by forged curvilinear elements or flat discs coated with fiberglass. Multi-shaft carefully balanced shapes, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, create a moving, soothing three-dimensional image of harmony. An outboard motor-reducer is mounted inside the sculptures” Anthony Howe says.

Howe starts with digital modeling using Rhinoceros 3D software, then the steel elements of the sculptures are plasma cut and assembled using traditional metalworking techniques.

© Anthony Howe, 2013. OCTO 3 . Stainless steel. 7.6 m high × 9.1 m wide × 9.1 m deep. 3200 kg. 16 connected blades rotating on a circular shaft. Withstands wind speeds of 90 mph. Provided various options night illumination. Sold in Dubai, UAE.

Even the lightest breeze is able to set in motion dozens of rotating parts of the sculptures. Howe claims that he pays great attention to testing his sculptures for wind resistance. One way is to attach the sculpture to your Ford F-150 and then drive on the freeway.

“I was tired of everything still in my visual world”, - explains Howe, who considers motionless sculptures to be lifeless.

" received new article"". These are really interesting mechanisms, similar to living beings. Based on the laws of computer and natural evolution. The first sculptures were sailing. The last animals walk, go in calm, feel water and obstacles, remember the path and even protect themselves from storms.

Kinetic sculpture by Theo Jansen works only on wind energy: there are no gasoline, diesel, electric and so on engines. Energy for movement is stored in bottles. A general idea of the kinetic sculptures of Theo Jansen can be obtained from the video:

And more detailed design features, if you, we consider further.

So, for starters - the principle of operation of one stilted part.

These are the measurements of the 11 leg components.

The legs, in turn, are attached to a kind of spine. The spine in this case is the crankshaft, which can either simply transmit movement, or be rotated using propellers, compressed air, and so on.

The best movement of the leg occurs when the foot describes something like a triangle with rounded tops. Different proportions of the 11 components of the leg give different geometric shapes when moving. The author of the sculptures experimented a lot, in particular with computer models, to find the ideal ratio of the parts of the leg. To some extent, this relationship can be represented more clearly using next video. It also gives a different interpretation of the appearance of the legs of the kinetic sculpture.

By the way, computer simulation did not give any special results due to the huge number of options. geometric shapes that can describe the foot of the foot. So, for example, each of the 11 leg components can have 10 length options. It turns out more than a million variants of curves. A computer would have been working on them for hundreds of years. I had to turn to the method of computer evolution.

So, the computer chose 1500 random lengths of the leg components. And he appreciated the geometric shapes that the foot of each leg describes:

Of the 1500 options for geometric shapes, 100 of the most optimal were selected. Accordingly, 100 types of combinations of different lengths of leg parts were obtained.

Of these lengths of parts (the rest were sifted out) random method 1500 more leg variants were created. Of these, 100 legs with the most optimal curves were selected. Based on the resulting lengths of the parts, new 1500 variants of legs were created - and so on.

The cycle was repeated for many months day and night. The final result is the leg of Animaris Currens Vulgaris (Common Animal Runner), the first animal to walk on the beach on its own. But even this leg was not perfect, the animal periodically stopped. So the evolution continues 🙂

Here is an example of a set of numbers that give a more or less moving leg:

a = 38, b = 41.5, c = 39.3, d = 40.1, e = 55.8, f = 39.4, g = 36.7, h = 65.7, i = 49, j = 50, k = 61.9, l=7.8, m= 15

Another calculation of the components of the leg, carried out in matkad:

And here is another example of calculating the components of the legs:

Based on this calculation, a kinetic sculpture is also built:

In this video, you can take a good look at the sets of plastic bottles that are used to accumulate wind energy:

The wind moves the sails on the crankshaft, the energy is transferred to the bicycle pump, which inflates the bottles. This takes several hours. But how to make the animal move, and even automatically? This requires muscles. Muscles are a tube within a hollow tube, which can cause it to lengthen. The elongation is caused by inflation of the rubber ball, which increases in volume and pushes the nested pipe.

Some enthusiasts are trying to develop real vehicles based on them:

Well, the author himself believes that this type of movement is a revolution in the world of technology, comparable in importance to the invention of the wheel. The way these creatures move is based on the principle of the wheel (there is an axis that is always horizontal to the ground), but everything else is different. This is an advantage over the wheel, especially in hard-to-reach places like sand.

A great example of a kinetic sculpture with a "hamster" engine:

Interview with Theo Jansen with Russian subtitles:

The main components of modern kinetic sculptures from Theo Jansen:

The stilted legs we talked about earlier.
Engines, they are also the sailing of sculptures.
Accumulators, they are also fan-shaped pieces on sculptures and plastic bottles where air is injected.
Signal transmission system - tubes transmitting compressed air and check valves with springs.
System for monitoring obstacles and wetness of the soil (if the probes meet insurmountable obstacles, they turn the sculpture back).
Water sensing system (based on sucking water into bottles, increasing pressure and sending the animal back).
The brain of an animal is a system of bottles, valves, tubes) operating on a binary system. The brain counts steps from obstacle to obstacle. Therefore, when the animal reaches the water, etc., turns back - it knows how much to go back.
Storm protection system (a hammer that hammers the stakes on the nose of the sculpture into the ground in strong winds).

There will be more in the future 🙂

These are the original living kinetic sculptures from Theo Jansen.

Kinetic sculpture is a special direction in contemporary art, based on the effect of the movement of the entire art object or its individual elements. Masters working in this genre managed to destroy the myth that real sculptural images should be static. Their creations are filled with movement and life. They attract attention, fascinate and make a person think about the impermanence of all things and phenomena that surround him in this world.

Sculptures by Lime Young

Lime Young - contemporary artist from South Korea, who creates unusual sculptures of the most complex forms using microprocessors, circuit boards, stainless steel parts and other materials unusual for works of art. Set in motion by special mechanisms, his installations resemble unimaginable living creatures and have a truly magical effect on viewers. Understand how they work common man not under power. But this is not necessary, because any kinetic sculpture of Young is created in order to amaze the audience.

Creations by Bob Potts

The famous American sculptor Bob Potts creates minimalist installations that imitate the flapping of bird wings, the movement of oars in a boat, etc. His sculptures are made of lightweight materials and are not burdened with unnecessary details, but this does not prevent them from bringing viewers into indescribable delight. Particularly impressive to art lovers is the amazing accuracy with which Potts manages to recreate the trajectory of the objects on display.

U-Ram Cho and his artwork

Kinetic sculpture has completely captured the imagination of South Korean artist U-Ram Cho. All his works have complex structures and mechanisms. Made of various metals, they are supplemented with gearboxes, motors, all kinds of boards and microprocessors, thanks to which they are set in motion. Korean installations resemble outlandish birds, fish, insects and other creatures unknown modern civilization. To make unusual sculptures look more realistic, the master demonstrates them accompanied by light and sound effects.

Moving compositions by Anthony Howe

For more than 25 years, American Anthony Howe has been creating three-dimensional abstract compositions made of lightweight stainless steel, set in motion by the slightest breath of breeze. All the author's creations consist of several dozen mobile elements and resemble unthinkable astronomical models or from the future. Some of Anthony Howe's kinetic sculptures stand firmly on the ground, but there are some among them that are displayed in a suspended state. Driven by the power of the wind, they mesmerize those around them with a change in their appearance every second.

Outlandish Animals by Theo Jansen

Kinetic sculptures by Theo Jansen carry the idea of preserving life on the planet. They are made from plastic bottles and pipes, insulating tape, adhesive tape, nylon thread, cardboard and other scrap materials. Jansen gives his creations the appearance of huge outlandish animals, which, according to him, feed on wind energy and can move independently. Despite their apparent lightness, they are able to maintain stability even under strong gusts of wind. Before creating the next figure, the wizard using computer program calculates the parameters of the model and only then assembles it and puts it on the beach, located near his home in Holland. Today, a whole family of outlandish animals has already gathered on it, peacefully adjacent to each other.

"Live" installations in Russia

Kinetic sculpture is popular not only in foreign countries. In Russia today there are many artists who are fond of creating moving installations. So, through the efforts of the participants of the capital artistic group ArtMechanicus has created a whole collection of wooden mechanical fish. There are among their creations and Fish-house, and Fish-ram, and Fish-knight. In addition to Muscovites, Ivan Poddubny from Yalta is also creating unusual sculptures. He makes miniature installations of wood and leather, powered by a spring motor. Poddubny's works are perfectly combined with modern interiors and are designed to decorate residential and office premises.

January 19th, 2015

It so happened that since October 2009 I have been constantly leading the Artifact column in the Popular Mechanics magazine, dedicated to kinetic and "near-kinetic" scientific and technical art. During this time I have written and edited more than 60 articles on various kinetic sculptors and artists, and corresponded and communicated with more than two hundred masters of art mechanics.

Chris Eckert (USA). Auto Ink. Device for automatic tattooing. The image is pre-loaded into the computer's memory. Only tested on temporary tattoos with a pen, but may work with a needle.

I personally know Nemo Gold, Brad Litwin, Ruben Margolin, Chris Eckert, Julien Berthier, Gregory Barsamian, Balint Bolygo and dozens of other kinetic sculptors. Over time, I realized that I could write a dissertation on kinetic art without any problems, and not even one; in principle, if our education system allowed me to defend a dissertation without going through three years of graduate school, I would have done just that, an extra crust would not hurt. There is some option for such a plan, but I have not figured it out yet. Another thing is that I am not sure that there are specialists in Russia who understand kinetics better than me, and therefore I vaguely imagine who could become a leader. I never studied kinetic art specifically - it just happened. Well, okay, we'll survive without a crust.

Choi U-Ram ( South Korea). Echo Navigo Larva. Kinetic Skeleton fantastic creature species Anmorome Istiophorus platypterus Uram.

It would be interesting to organize in Moscow or St. Petersburg - in fact, it does not matter, in any city of Russia - a full-fledged exhibition of kinetic art or any particular sculptor. I myself do not have such financial opportunities, but I do have organizational ones. Contacting and negotiating with any master from the list at the end of the post is not difficult for me at all. Most of the time I can just call and say something like “Hey Ted, do you want an exhibition in Moscow?”

Nemo Gold (USA). Doubtful. One of the cute robots of the American sculptor. According to the author, in his body movements, the robot is completely alien to doubts and moral principles.

Many people know that I give open lectures on scientific and technical topics - I read at Seliger, at regional Russian scientific festivals, at the Siberian "Robosib" and so on. Thinking I designed lecture on kinetic art- why not? You can even make a course of lectures - I have enough material and knowledge for 16-20 academic hours without repetition, but with illustrations and video materials.

Joseph Hersher (USA). Bread Goldberg Machine. Joseph Herscher's Rube Goldberg machine will quickly make bread and send it straight to your plate.

Christopher Miskia (Norway). Machine that uses a thousand years to shut itself down. A mechanical device driven by a motor. The engine drives the first ring, the second ring rotates from it through the transmission, and so on. The last ring has a pin, which after some time will press the engine shutdown button. This will happen after 1000 years of rotation of the machine - this is how the gear ratios are calculated.

Anthony Howe (USA). In Cloud Light III. Classic street kinetic sculpture. Rotates under the influence of the wind (however, Howe's works are often equipped with motors to work even in calm)

There is also a subsection of water sculptures, where not air is used as a mover, but water, fire or fog. For example, Ned Cann.

SOUND MACHINES

A separate area of kinetics is unusual musical instruments and noise robots. In this genre, it is not so much the extracted sound that is important, but the method of extracting it.

Canadian Maxime de La Rochefoucauld is very interesting here. He manufactures musical instrument(string or percussion) from all sorts of things, and builds a column with a spring attached to it into its design. It delivers low-frequency (or high-frequency) noise to the speaker, the spring vibrates and beats the strings, extracting assonant sounds. De La Rochefoucauld has a whole orchestra of this madness.

Maxime de La Rochefoucauld (Canada). Drum kit from the Ki Automates series. Maxim gives vibration to the speaker, a drumstick attached to it on a movable spring beats on the stretched skin.

The most interesting kinetic musician, if I may say so, is the Swiss Zimun, sound architect. He takes various surfaces (most often cardboard boxes) and attaches systems of balls driven by motors to them. The balls haphazardly beat against the boxes, creating a monotonous sound background of hypnotic properties.

Zimun (Switzerland). 329 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, toluene tank. One day, Zimun bought a huge toluene tank, cleaned it from the inside and supplied 329 motors with cotton balls attached to them. Now inside the tank reigns measured, oppressive cacophonous madness.

Video:

DRAWING MACHINES

A popular trend is drawing machines. typical representative– Balint Bolygo, British of Hungarian origin. He makes very strange drawing machines that can draw the same patterns for days. He does a lot more than just this. good example.

Balint Bolygo (Great Britain). polycycle. Artist machine. He draws no worse than modern abstractionists and expressionists.

I really love his work The Page Turner:

Rube Goldberg's chic car was in the OK Go video:

INTERACTIVE AND DIGITAL ART

The last fifteen years have given a sharp impetus to another direction of kinetic art - various digital interactive installations that interact with the viewer. The coolest thing I've seen in this genre is Daniel Rosin's interactive mirrors. His mirrors are opaque, but consisting of many pixels (wooden, metal, glass); the camera reads the viewer's face, and the mirror forms the images by changing the position of the pixels.

Daniel Rozin (USA). Peg Mirror. 650 cylindrical wooden blocks change their position relative to the light source, forming an image of the viewer.

For example, the Dutchman Marnix de Nijs showed himself well in this context. In his works, the viewer takes a certain position, and the images on interactive screens are formed depending on his behavior.

Marnix de Nijs (Netherlands). Exploded Views Remapping Firenze. An installation in which the viewer can "run" through interactively and randomly generated world attractions. In this case, the instrument is set to interactive map Florence. The picture on the screen depends on the intensity of the run.

FUNCTIONAL KINETIC ART

Rare but interesting direction- the creation of art objects that perform some real function. Say, very beautiful devices. For example, Wayne Belger makes uniquely designed pinhole cameras from skulls, ruined building parts, and blood. Each camera is created for a specific series of photographs, and both the photographs and the devices used to take them are exhibited at the exhibition.

Wayne Belger (USA). untouchable. A pinhole camera made with the blood of a person infected with HIV.

Installation with a camera and pictures.

Absolutely amazing lady - Tatjana van Vark from Holland. She is literally obsessed with science and scientific instruments, and made her first oscilloscope at the age of 14. Now in her 60s, she continues to make scientific instruments of high aesthetics.

Tatiana van Wark (Netherlands). The Harmonium. Instrument for harmonic analysis and synthesis of signals. Quite functional and usable in a lab, just aesthetically very beautiful.

WORKS OUT OF CLASSIFICATION

Finally, there are unique sculptors. Which do things that do not fit into the traditional sub-genres of kinetics.

Francois Junot (France). Alexandre Pouchkin. A mechanical automaton depicting Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin can write 1458 (!) Various texts and drawings, imitating Pushkin's handwriting. He dips his pen into the inkwell, moves his head and arms, and writes, writes. No electronics - only mechanics.

An absolutely unique example is the animated sculptures of Gregory Barsamyan. He makes rotating mechanisms that you need to look at in a stroboscopic flash of light - and you get the feeling that right in front of you a plasticine action-cartoon is unfolding that you can touch with your hands.

Gregory Barsamyan (USA). Feral Font. One of the examples of mechanical "cartoons" by Gregory Barsamyan.

The Korean Choi U-Ram also defies classification. He will make fantastic animals of incredible beauty and complexity (mostly "extinct"), which he gives Latin names and invents complex legends.

Choi U-Ram (South Korea). Custos Cavum. The skeleton of a fictional creature Choi, the now dead guardian of the gate between our world and the other world. When the last Custos Cavum died, the last gates closed forever.

"NEAR KINETIC" SCULPTURES

The “near-kinetic” art is also interesting. When there may not be moving parts in a sculpture, but its materials and execution technique imply a man-made origin of the work. Let's say Christopher Conte's insects.

Christopher Conte (USA). Red Widow. Typical Conte work.

Or figures from details typewriters Jeremy Mayer.

Jeremy Mayer (USA). Bust IV. Mayer's typical work.

Les Machines de l'île (France). Le Grand Éléphant. A huge steam (actually, of course, diesel) elephant, an imitation of a similar device from the work of Jules Verne, travels around Nantes and rides those who wish.

In total, this is about a quarter of the sculptors with whom I am more or less familiar. I know about two hundred more, but I have never contacted them, because they work in genres that I have already done material on. Or maybe I just don't like them for some reason. It happens that way too.

In general, this is not quite a classification, of course. There are much more directions, in each I can name from 3-4 to 10-15 representatives. I find it difficult to say how many kinetic sculptors there are in the world. There are very few of them in Russia (only Evgeny Klimov's kinetic showcases immediately come to mind - in style they belong to the aforementioned class of "fair machines", and "kinetic fish" of the ArtMechanicus group). Meanwhile, this is a very significant and interesting layer of art that would be interesting to popularize and develop.

So if I still find opportunities both to give lectures on kinetic art and to organize an exhibition, do not pass by. It will be interesting.

Anthony Howe is a kinetic sculptor based in the village of Eastsound, Washington. The sculptor works mainly with stainless steel. His sculptures come alive with every gust of wind, as if by magic, a fabulous, hypnotizing spectacle.

The video below shows best work Anthony Howe, it is noticeable that facial expressions change with a gust of wind and flashes of light.

Anthony Howe is a typical urban dweller, in whose biography you can find references to such places as Manhattan or Seattle at every turn. And yet it was he, who grew up in the stone jungle, who managed to find mutual language with the forces of nature, making them allies in his work. Wind is the main component, without which Howe's sculptures simply could not exist.

OCTO 3 . Stainless steel. 7.6 m high × 9.1 m wide × 9.1 m deep. 3200 kg. 16 connected blades rotating on a circular shaft. Withstands wind speeds of 90 mph. Various options for night illumination are provided. Sold in Dubai, UAE.

About face . Stainless steel, copper. 2.2 m high × 1.6 m wide × 1.5 m deep. 100 individually balanced copper panels.

Howe starts with digital modeling using Rhinoceros 3D software, then the steel elements of the sculptures are plasma cut and assembled using traditional metalworking techniques.

Octo

Olotron

In-Out Quotient

Vlast-O-

In Cloud Light

Kinetic Wind Sculpture

The creation of kinetic sculptures, that is, those that can move, as a direction in art arose not so long ago - in the mid-50s of the last century, and as an additional example, one can recall the works of Theo Jansen. However, unlike Jansen's plastic sculptures, Anthony works with metal, mainly with steel. Using steel rebar combined with forged curvilinear shapes and fiberglass coated discs, Howe creates fantastic sculptures. In calm weather, they surprise with their elegance, and with the slightest breath of wind they set in motion, whirling in a dance that only they can understand and creating an inexplicable secret harmony.

Anthony Howe has been creating kinetic sculptures for about 20 years. "I'm trying to create objects whose appearance will be associated with attributes science fiction just as with biological and astronomical models,” says the author.
The sculptor was born in 1954 in Salt Lake City (Utah, USA). Anthony Howe began his creative career as an artist and only after moving to New York moved from painting to sculpture. The author gained wide popularity in the late 1990s.

Spine Tower

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