Kinetic Art

Kinetic Art — A form of art that depends on movement for its effect

Ever since I saw Arthur Ganson’s Gestural Engineering exhibit at the MIT Museum, I’ve been fascinated by kinetic art. It combines art and engineering in a way that resonated with me, and ever since I’ve been on the lookout for interesting physics and mechanical motions to turn into art. Below are several concepts that I’ve been toying with.

Incubating Art

Moire Patterns

I’ve experimented with creating some moire patterns out of antisymmetric images rotating in opposite directions. These are some moire patterns that are 100% original work — I drew up the images using Inkscape and then wrote the code in Processing to animate the pattern. These works are inspired by Jeff Lieberman’s Moore Pattern. My current plan is to cut the patterns out of semi-transparent acrylic to achieve the same effect as in the animation.

Kinetic Flower

A flower made from steel that blooms and closes periodically.

Paradox

This prototype tried to make several gears move in unexpected ways. You’ll see that for one turn of the central gear, the outer gears appear to deviate from the behavior you’d expect.