Andrew Chase’s fully articulated mechanical sculptures are poetry in motion. Chase successfully captures the grace of the cheetah and the lumbering, deliberate ways of the elephant using recycled transmission parts, electrical conduits, plumbing pipes and steel. They are utterly charming and realistic enough to make the cheetah seem almost a bit scary.
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{click image to see a full size animation of the cheetah running}
{click image to see a full size animation of the elephant’s ears}
Is it kinetic sculpture? Or is it digital art? How about kinetic digital sculpture? Digital Media artist John Baugh uses the mechanics of 3D modeling and animation to create what he calls kinetic digital sculpture. Very interesting…
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[private_archives]To get the full effect you must see these in action on Baugh’s website: The Dark Space, or you can view them on Axis Web.
The repeating animations are constructed using 3D animation software and consist of a series of digital forms that explore the relationship between movement and structure. The digital structures use movement to create arrangements that deconstruct and re-assemble over time. The movements mirror the evolution and growth of material elements captured through time lapse photography. The aesthetic intricacy of each sculpture could also be said to possess a duplicity changing between symmetrical beauty and an uneasiness that is ascribed to the continually changing combination of forms that appears synthetic and uncontrollable.
Here’s a Friday treat for you. This mind-boggling kinetic sculpture was created for the newly opened BMW Museum in Germany. 714 metal balls on strings. The video is 6 minutes long – scroll through the first 52 seconds to get to the interesting part.
Art+Com created the sculpture – visit their website for more mind-boggling work.
Daily Art Muse reader Robin Johnston sent along a link to Theo Jansen’s TED talk. Listen to Jansen as he describes the project that he has worked on for the last 16 years – a menagerie of enormous constructed beasts that walk along the beach learning how to survive on their own. He refers to the kinetic sculptures as a new life form and explains how he really did reinvent the wheel. This is genius at work.
From TED:
His newest creatures walk without assistance on the beaches of Holland, powered by wind, captured by gossamer wings that flap and pump air into old lemonade bottles that in turn power the creatures’ many plastic spindly legs.
Fascinating. Want more? Me too. Take a look at this short trailer from a documentary about the creatures.
