Check out this entertaining mechanical bank with exposed workings. This ingenious device by artist Christopher Blasius came to my attention recently from Dug North's Automata Blog.
It is operated by a hand crank and does a fascinating directional change from circular motion to linear action. The artist is selling plans here and has uploaded an extensive YouTube video showing both the operation and assembly instructions. Worth a view. I'll be adding a link to David's links page for those people always looking for mechanically oriented plans.
This past month David completed a collection of White Water sculptures and their variations. The unique thing about White Water is that David designed it to be a sculpture alone. But if you have a taller wall, White Water has been designed to be combined in tandem vertically to create Falling Water II. And if you have a larger horizontal space, put it together differently and two White Waters makes an Avalanche.
David had orders for all three, and completed them togther. We noticed that the videos on the website and in YouTube for these three sculptures were created using older technologies and we have learned to make better videos since then. With all three sculptures complete and in the shop at the same time, it made sense to set them up and shoot new video. This past week David completed the editing on the three new videos. And that is the long way to get around to the subject of this blog post!
Over the many years David has been creating videos he has also experimented with background music. Options are limited because of copyright restrictions. He has experimented with changing options some with more success than others, but he has recently discovered and started using the music from musopen.org. This online resource is a non-profit organization with the goal of "Setting Music Free." They are "focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. [They] provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions". They provide open source music recorded and shared as open source performances. All three of these new videos have compositors from the Bach Goldberg Variations from the collection at musopen.org as accompaniment. David spends hours researching the music for each video. Check these out and compare and contrast how they impact they viewing experience.
Avalanche
White Water
Falling Water II
Do you have a favorite sculpture? How about sculpture/music combination? Do you like the music with the video? We'd love to hear your opinion.
David works extensively in Adobe Illustrator. He has developed libraries of kinetic sculpture parts and documents filled with layers. He turns the layers on and off depending on which sculpture he is working on. Recently all layers were turned on at once and the resulting image is a work of art unto itself.
This is a screen shot of the layers on. Wood That Works, all sculptures, one image!
David has been making kinetic sculptures for many, many years and although we have kept good records over the years, the method of recording the sculptures in motion has changed dramatically with technology. We have invested in all types of video equipment but it wasn't until recent years that we saw a great improvement in both equipment and software for recording the motion. As time permits, and as we again gain access to some of David's earlier work, we are trying to update the files with better (or in many case new) video. Last week we made a video of Aperture.
Aperture is from 1993 and was developed during the same time as Reflections and Duet. The motion of the upper assembly is a dance of variations depending on when and how strong a power kick it gets from either of its two lower mechanisms.
Aperture was one of the last pieces to use the descending weighted balls which cats every where loved! He first used them on Kaleidoscope in 1979. David stopped using them in designs not because of cats but because people kept yanking on them as well.
Spending time video taping this piece has again reminded David of how much he likes the motion of the three upper crescents. Not all of his earlier work inspires new ideas. This one does!
Last week David received an email from Mark Brzeszkiewicz who was inspired by David's work (Sun Dance) and went about designing and building his own kinetic sculptures. He sent a link to one of his designs currently submitted to the KAO International Kinetic Symposium in Boyton Beach, Floridia. This symposium runs this weekend (Feb. 8-10, 2013) and if you are in Florida you might want to check it out. There are many outside kinetic sculptures on display and three venues with inside sculptures as well.
And if you you can't travel there, you can still enjoy Mark's Kinetic sculpture via YouTube.
