Kinetic Art Archives – Daily Art Fixx

Patrice Hubert: Kinétic Mécanik

March 14, 2013 By Wendy Campbell

French artist Patrice Hubert is a self-taught sculptor, inventor and creator of the unique performance works entitled, “Kinetic Mecanik” Hubert’s work fits into the Gothic Revival of the late 19th Century and New Age movement of the 1970’s. Inspired by HR Giger and Hieronymus Bosch, he uses the inventiveness from da Vinci to Jack Kirby to create metal sculptures that come to life.

Hubert’s allegorical sculptures, monumental in size, evoke the curiosity of machines and the organic forms of nature heavily weighted within the “Steampunk” movement where present day technology is still being run by steam. Fantastical yet fictional, Hubert’s sculptures melds the cold and often mechanical side of man and within the same, creates life like creatures that evoke spiders and insects. The Work, which is rebellious, yet philosophically beautiful, the work stands to presume a time of the past and future yet each sculpture is kinetic in nature and a fully functional moving sculpture, ensuring that the motors are hidden and the lights emerge from within the pieces bringing life to his late 19th century inspirations.

Not unlike a race car or roller coaster, Hubert’s work begins with an accelerated motion until it reaches its full velocity. The work stands to question our own physical movement beckoning us to question the psychological rebellion each individual incurs when confronted with the new and the desire to remain in the comfort of the past. (bio from The Conference Room)

To see more of Hubert’s work, visit 1661235.com. Check out videos of these kinetic creations in motion on You Tube.

Discovered via: Hi-Fructose

Theo Jansen: Kinetic Sculpture

June 23, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

From TED Talks – a great presentation from Dutch kinetic artist Theo Jansen who demonstrates his lifelike kinetic sculptures. “Jansen has been working for 16 years to create sculptures that move on their own in eerily lifelike ways. Each generation of his “Strandbeests” is subject to the forces of evolution, with successful forms moving forward into new designs. Jansen’s vision and long-term commitment to his wooden menagerie is as fascinating to observe as the beasts themselves.

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. The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way that the body is steady and level. They even incorporate primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the machine’s direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck.”

To see more video of Jansen’s fascinating work, visit StrandBeest.com.

Art-E-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts XI

March 28, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

1. Group f/64 was a group of seven 20th century San Francisco photographers including Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpoint. The group formed in opposition to the Pictorialist photographic style that had dominated much of the early 1900s, but moreover they wanted to promote a new Modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects.

2. Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. A pioneer of Kinetic art was Naum Gabo with his motorised Standing Wave of 1919–20. Mobiles were pioneered by Alexander Calder from about 1930. Kinetic art became a major phenomenon of the late 1950s and the 1960s and is still popular today.

3. In 1962 Elaine de Kooning received a commission from the White House to paint a portrait of President John F. Kennedy. De Kooning then spent the much of 1963 fine-tuning the portrait, collecting hundreds of photographs of Kennedy, and drawing short-hand sketches of him whenever he appeared on TV. The resulting portrait remains one of de Kooning’s most well known and celebrated paintings, and easily stands out in the long line of presidential portraits. Kennedy died shortly after on November 22, 1963.

4. Michelangelo was known to be a complicated man. “Arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, he nonetheless authored tender poetry. In spite of his legendary impatience and indifference to food and drink, he committed himself to tasks that required years of sustained attention, creating some of the most beautiful human figures ever imagined.”

5. Steampunk Art is an art form based on the sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. The popularity of steampunk has translated into all genres of the art world but especially in sculpture where various found objects (often brass, iron, and wood) are molded into mechanical “steampunk” sculpture with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.

Sources: Wikipedia (Group f/64), Wikipedia (kinetic art), The Art Story (de Kooning), DAF (Michelangelo), Wikipedia (Steampunk)