Anthony Howe is a kinetic sculptor based in the village of Eastsound, Washington. The sculptor works mainly with stainless steel. His sculptures come to life 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 city 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. 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.
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 software Rhinoceros 3D, then the steel elements of the sculptures are made using plasma cutting and assembled using traditional technologies metal work.
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, but as 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 creates kinetic sculptures for about 20 years now. "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 started his creative career as an artist and only after moving did New York move from painting to sculpture. The author gained wide popularity in the late 1990s.
Spine Tower
"Received a new article"". These are really interesting mechanisms, similar to living beings. It is 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. General view about Theo Jansen's kinetic sculptures 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 ratio can be visualized using the following video. It also gives a different interpretation. appearance legs of a kinetic sculpture.
By the way, computer modelling did not give 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 options leg component lengths. 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, it turned out 100 types of combinations various lengths leg parts.
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 tube.
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 things on sculptures and plastic bottles where the air is blown.
- 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), working on 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 (hammer, which, when strong wind hammers the stakes on the nose of the sculpture into the ground).
There will be more in the future 🙂
These are the original living kinetic sculptures from Theo Jansen.
kinetic art V last years is at the peak of popularity, because the masters, who have mastered light and movement, manage to achieve a stunning effect - to overcome the static sculpture. In our review - 8 most original examples as art objects come to life.
1.Fantastic mechanism by artist Lime Young
Lime Young is a real virtuoso. The master manages to design the most complex mechanisms from boards, microprocessors, servo drives and other mechanical devices. Activated, his kinetic sculptures have a magnetic effect on the audience, because it is simply impossible for the layman to unravel the riddle of the mechanism.
2.Silhouettes of cars from metal spheres
appeared a few years ago, but still causes delight. 714 metal spheres fold to form car models different year release.
3. Wing flap by Bob Potts
70-year-old sculptor Bob Potts creates minimalistic, but no less impressive works. His kinetic sculptures imitate the flapping of a bird's wings or the movement of an oar while rowing. It is amazing how the master manages to convey the trajectory of movement so accurately.
4. "Dancing" sculptures by Anthony Howe
works with rough material - steel reinforcement, but creates surprisingly harmonious kinetic sculptures. In calm weather, they look elegant and sophisticated, and with the first breath of the breeze, they begin their bizarre dance.
5. Mechanical Fish by ArtMechanicus Art Group
Through the efforts of the artistic ArtMechanicus groups more than one was born mechanical fish". In the collection of Moscow masters, there are “Fish-House”, reminiscent of Noah's Ark, “Fish-Knight”, personifying a lonely horseman, “Nut Fish”, symbolizing the desire for beauty, and “Ram-Fish”, an allegory of the struggle between living and inanimate principles.
6. Wood Wonders by David Roy
David Roy gives touching and tender names- "Fiesta", " Summer rain”, “Solar dance”, “Serenade”, “Marshmallow”. Wooden creations are set in motion by the wind and immediately become light and elegant.
7. Kinetic device playing the violin. Author - Seth Goldstein
Seth Goldstein is a mechanical engineer who managed to create a device that can copy the movement of hands. Equipped with actuators, rotors, pulleys and computer chips, the kinetic sculpture recognizes audio files played on an electronic keyboard and then plays a melody on the violin.
8 Giant Animal Sculptures by Theo Jansen
Giant miracle monsters that, obeying the gusts of the wind, come to life, Theo Jansen creates from plastic tubes, cable cord, nylon ropes and adhesive tape. And after - arranges fun beach walks of insectoid animals. Without a doubt, .
Harmony, beauty and justice are what everyone can bring to this world. But some of us are able to change it dramatically and in a big way. Moreover, this does not require suitcases of money, special connections in the right ministry or a large bribe to an official. Now you will see inventions that at first glance are very simple and may even seem useless to some, but who knows, perhaps in the future they will radically change our world. After all, they are already helping millions. So let's go.
Ice towers against drought "Towers of ice" help the inhabitants of the Himalayas to adapt to climate change. They are created by Indian engineer Sonam Wangchuck. He laid a siphon pipeline from a mountain river to one of the villages. Escaping under pressure from a vertical pipe, like a geyser, the water freezes, forming a 20-meter ice tower, reminiscent of a Buddhist sanctuary - a stupa. In spring, such a "stupa" melts, irrigating dry land. The system is easily scalable, and then the engineer laid pipelines for another 50 towers. Well, at the end of 2016, Sonam was invited to Switzerland to create an ice stupa. The project was successfully implemented and today the company is building ice towers all over the world.
Iron fish - against anemia A Cambodian company has manufactured a fish capable of fighting iron deficiency, which, due to malnutrition, occurs in 3.5 billion people. It would seem a useless invention - fish are made in Cambodia from scrap metal, which is tested for quality. When cooked, it releases iron, which then enters the body. Basically, this lack of iron is due to a poor diet that does not include red meat and vegetables. And this is especially true for Cambodia, as more than half of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Maybe for the inhabitants of Russia, too, invent some kind of fish, but not iron, but, for example, with vitamin D? Indeed, according to the conclusion of the Federal Research Center for Nutrition, Biotechnology and Food Safety, 80% of Russians have an acute shortage of this important element.
And now let's move on to digital technologies. (Split the Pie) Raspberry Pi is a computer for the poorest For many poor people main problem when buying a computer, its relatively high price is, but with the advent of this computer for the poorest, such a problem ceases to be relevant.
This is the cheapest computer created by British programmer David Braben. The device is a small board the size of a bank card. You can connect external devices to it, including a network cable. The Raspberry Pi has a 700 MHz processor and flash card based permanent memory. The cost of such a computer is 25 and 35 US dollars, depending on the modification.
In another gadget: Kilgoris Project (Kilgoris Project) - an e-book instead of textbooks E-books for students from poor countries are cheaper than $ 100 tablets, and most importantly, all textbooks in all subjects for all years of study can be stored in one such e-book. And profitability allows you to deal with chronic shortages of electricity.
Now about football: Home power plant in a soccer ball A group of students came up with a way to generate electricity for their own needs, even children can. They created a soccer ball that generates energy right during the game. An hour of football can provide a person with light for the evening. Moreover, with this device you can also charge mobile devices - phones, e-books, tablet computers.
Handy Water Carrier In rural areas, you often have to travel many miles to fetch water. This is tedious and takes a very long time. The "water wheel" can solve this problem. It has a capacity of 45 liters, and pushing the wheel requires much less effort. It is also durable enough to be used even on rough terrain. Due to its large volume and ease of use, it saves a lot of time and energy. It would seem that it is so simple that there is no point in talking about it. But how many thousands of poor people have it actually made life easier?
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 about various kinetic sculptors and artists, and corresponded and communicated with more than two hundred masters of artistic 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 others. 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. Wu de la Rochefoucauld whole orchestra 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. It takes various surfaces (most often carton 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. A typical representative is Balint Boligo, a 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 device is set to an interactive map of Florence. The picture on the screen depends on the intensity of the run.
FUNCTIONAL KINETIC ART
A rare but interesting direction is the creation of art objects that perform some real function. Say, very beautiful instruments. For example, Wayne Belger makes pinhole cameras. unique design- from skulls, parts of destroyed buildings 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 obsessed with literally words on 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 invent complex legends
Choi U-Ram (South Korea). Custos Cavum. The skeleton of a fictional Choi creature, 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 Jeremy Mayer's typewriter parts.
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.
