Oops, did we say art? Don’t let that three letter word scare you, because this project called Breaking Wave is nothing short of an absolutely incredible, fully mechanical, machine.
It’s kind of hard to tell in the picture, but there are 804 rusty spheres hanging from cables which make up the pixels of this display.
7 comments:
Wow! This is an incredible sculpture. I love seeing new creative ways to change a person's perspective on an object. And just how the sculpture moves so swiftly... it blew me away and now I really want to experience this sculpture in person. This is super inspiring and I hope to see more from this group. Keep it up!
This 804 ball synchronized kinetic sculpture is mind blowing. Its fascinating that the artist individually planned and installed the movement of each rusty sphere. After watching the video of the installation, I was blown away at the complexity of this sculpture. The line quality within each sphere adds a whole other layer of amusement to the piece. The mechanical mechanism that drives the power behind the movement was well professionally constructed and timed beautifully. Hopefully nobody will ever accidentally run into the moving sculpture and mess it up one day. I loved how a certain moments and angles the sculpture created patterns. Seven months of work and the artists/engineers have no idea if their creation is going to work until its installed. Simply beautiful.
The planning on this must have been extensive, more than they are showing us in the second video. Reminds me a lot of the Susan Line Projects, but way cooler than anything we turned out. I'm surprised that they didn't test it at all until they finally put it up. I guess that was part of the fun part though since it was all theory until the end.
Watching the finished product, it looks so simple, but after watching them install it, it is crazy how complex this contraption is! There isn't even brain to it, it is all hardware shaped the way they want and a motor to power it! I wonder if they could have used a lighter material, or if that would mess up the movement because of the tangling possibilities.
It's astounding how beautifully elegant as simple moving ball can be. When you multiply that by 804, you're left with a magnificent, choreographed piece where every ball works together to form a beautiful work of art. One extremely unique part about this is the balls. I love the look of them especially in the clean office. I spent the whole time wondering what they were made from and how they made such unique planet like figures that all move so fluidly. I thought it was a statement about the solar system and universe and how beautiful it all is. It's remarkable how its just wood treated with metal.
This is incredibly cool. It sounds like an amazing feat just reading about the construction of this sculpture, but that's nothing compared to once you actually watch the video of the piece in action. Watching all of the mechanisms moving is absolutely crazy. It's incredible that the artists constructing this piece opted to use individual drum rollers and and central motor rather than using servos, which sounds like it would be significantly less tedious. I think that it's really important to consider why this was the choice. Just watching the mechanisms work alone is beautiful but I think it also must have a different feeling than if the movement was controlled digitally. Last year, in Basic Design, Susan would talk to us about how the techniques you use to complete a task conveys a different feeling (for example something that is laser cut versus hand cut). I imagine that a lot of what makes this piece what it is would be lost by digital control over the balls.
This is really relaxing to watch. I love three-dimensional art pieces like this, where the audience interacts with the piece just by changing position. It rather reminds me of those drawing which don’t look like anything until you hold them up to a mirror or a specially shaped cylinder or something similar. I love art that draws inspiration from science, and I believe we need more of it to exist, because I think the division between science and art which some people feel exist is harmful to both scientists and artists. I wonder what the reasoning behind using rusty balls rather than non-rusted ones, though I must admit, it gives a nice texture to things. It’s also interesting how the artist chose to have everything controlled mechanically rather than using a computer. Proof that math can be useful to an artist.
The ingenuity behind this is brilliant. it took me a second to figure it out but the top cam driving both the speed and the direction is brilliant. The time that must have gone into calculating the drum sizes must have been maddening though.
There was one statement that made me slightly frustrated. "hoping that the thing never breaks"
After looking at their website, this is definitely not the first time the company Hyperspace has done a permanent install so it surprises me that their lead designer makes such a blanket statement about the lack of planning that went into this piece. I understand that it is an incredibly complex machine and there isn't a whole lot of extra room to play with but just as he points out several times that if their math is wrong they wont know until its completed and then there will be no way of fixing it. Of course they could pull the whole thing apart and fix it but this screams lack of planning to me. You don't design a machine that you cant fix when it breaks (unless you are volkswagen from 1995-2011).
Still seriously blown away at the ingenuity and the painstaking calculations that must have gone into this machine.
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