1. Kinetics in Design: History and Now
IAT 106: Special Lecture

2. Contents The definition of machine
Ancient examples of kinetic sculptures
The definition of kinetic art
Modern examples of kinetic sculptures

3. Machine
“A machine generally means to us a practical purpose, a device that substitutes for or extends man's own forces.” --The Machine- Page 6”
Machines can be:
Toys
Agents of magic
Marvels
Fantasies
Functional devices

4. Ancient Examples of Kinetic Sculptures
Reasons for using ancient examples
Many of the new inventions spring from ancient precedents such as the crankshaft (translation of rotating movement to linear movement) which was invented long ago.
You have limited budget and equipment for our final project , so ancient examples are inspirational for their simple mechanics
Ideas about using wind power, water power and other natural powers can be found in ancient examples.

5. Heron of Alexandria (150 BC or 250 AD)
Wind power( wind wheel)
Water power
Steam Power
Fire-engine
Vending machine
Incredible automata
Thunder Making machine
Heron's contribution:

6. Wind Organ 1- The wind wheel rotates with wind power
2- The axes transfers the rotation to the second wheel
3- The second wheel makes the piston move back and forth.
4- The piston causes air pressure in the tube
5- The tube directs the air to organ pipes
6- The instrument produces sounds

7. Water Fountain 1- The water is first added to the bowl
2- Water travels down from the tube to the first container
3- As the water level gets higher, air pressure builds up
4- Air pressure travels into the second tube to the next container
5- The water will rise through the third tube at the bottom because of the air pressure
6- Water travels through the third tube
7- If you add a water wheel , then it makes the water wheel spins

8. Steam Engine

9. Automatic Temple doors
1- Fire causes air pressure
2- Air pressure inside the big bucket directs water to the second bucket
3- The second bucket becomes heavier, so it pulls the cord
4- The cord rotates the columns
5- The temple doors open

10. Holy Water Dispenser
1- By dropping coin, the plate becomes heavier and moves down.
2- the arm connect to the plate pulls up the string
3- It unblocks the tube and lets water to run down the pipe.

11. Automatic Puppets
1- Fire directs the heated air to the vertical tube with pressure
2- Air with pressure divides to the four horizontal tubes
3- The heated air coming out of the tubes start moving
4- The attached stage starts to move
Heron's Inventions

12. Al-Jazari (1136-1206) Al-jazari's contribution:
Designed complicated automata.
Applied thematic interfaces to his kinetic devices. Heron is interesting in terms of both mechanics and as an art genre, e.g., elephant clock.
Invented camshaft and crankshaft technology.
Invented escapement mechanism.
Wrote a Book of Knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices

13. Elephant Clock 1- There is a plate on top of the clock to show hours
2- The number of minutes is shown by an automaton sitting on the elephant in the middle
Mechanism:
1- Floating bowl sinks into a big tank
2- It triggers a ball from top
3- The ball falls into the serpents mouth
4- It triggers the mahout to produce a sound to announce passing of half an hour
5- The floating bowl backs up on the tank once the ball reaches the end
Interface:
Indian Elephant
Chinese Serpent
Muslim Architecture
Greek water technology
Elephant Clock

14. Musical Robot Band(Automata)
The boat has 4 musicians: two Drummers, one Harpist and one Flautist
One oarsman
Dancers
Mechanism
Water flows from the tank to boat
The flow turns the water wheel
The water wheel is connected to pegs
The pegs trigger the drummers
Assumption:
The flutist is triggered by shafts and pistons
The harpist works like the drummers

15. Significant technologies by Al-Jazari:
Camshaft: It comprises shafts that translate the direction of movement and force from rotational to translation.
Camshaft
Crankshaft: It translates translation into rotation or vice versa.
Crankshaft

16. Escapement mechanism
Escapement Mechanism: The function of escapement mechanism is to control the energy the clock receives and portion it out into small bits of regular movement.
Al-Jazari's Inventions
Escapement Mechanism

17. Kinetic Art Virtual Movements
A work of art that has movement or parts that are set in motion. The movement may be real or imagined. Movement may be mechanically powered (for example, by electricity, or air or water motion), or produced by the viewer moving past a work, or the work given the illusion of movement. Kinetic art sometimes merges with other types of avant-garde art, including performance art, computer-generated art, mixed media, and Installation art.
Types of Kinetic Art:
Virtual Movements
Three Dimensional Movements (Abstract Art, Automata)
Light and Movement

18. Three dimensional movement
Marcel Duchamp
Realist Manifesto and Constructivism
Architectural model as machines
Moholy Nagy
Mobiles and Alexander Calder
Kenneth Martin and Fibonacci Spirals
Automatas

19. The machine aesthetics ,Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp created the first modern kinetic sculpture in He called his work ready made art in His purpose for assembling bicycle wheel was an attempt to demystify art and to strip it of its material qualities.
In 1925 Marcel Duchamp started experimenting with spatial illusions with the use of actual spatial construction. It comprises an electric motor which rotates the plates and creates the visual effects.
Rotative Demi-spheres

20. Realist Manifesto and Constructivism(1919)
Constructivism was an artistic movement that emphasised the functionality of art for social and political purposes. Active from 1915 to the 1940’s, it was created by the Russian avant-garde, and spread to the rest of the continent.
Constructivist art is committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity, where themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional. Objective forms carrying universal meaning were far more suitable to the movement than subjective or individualistic forms.
Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic elements.
Realist Manifesto:
“…we announce the existence of a new element, kinetic rhythm, which is to be the basis of a new perception of real time.”
By Naum Gabo and Pevsner in Realist Manifesto

21. Architectural model as machine
Tatlin ( Russian Constructivist artist)( )
Tatlin’s thinking meshed with the emerging ideals of constructivism. He and his colleagues were inspired by :
1- The functional beauty of the machine
2- Industrial structures
3- Plain shapes and forms
4- Movement and dynamism
The monuments of the new era, they said, should be functional and active, not sullen objects for veneration.
Tatlin's Tower

22. Moholy Nagy Light Space Modulator
This sculpture is for showing plays of light and manifestation of movement.
The sculpture is consisted of:
Cube like body 120x120 cm
Circular plates
Yellow, Green, White electric bulbs
(70 illuminating bulbs 15 watt, 5 headlamps of 100 watt)
Glasses and mirrors
Moholy Nagy( ) was a Hungarian artist who was very much influenced by the works of constructivist He was one of figures of Bauhaus School.
Moholy Nagy Modulator

23. Mobiles
Mobiles are a type of kinetic sculptures which are consisted of weights and rods. The most important characteristics of mobiles are having the principle of equilibrium. The objects can freely rotate and balance each other.
Alexander Calder ( ) was an American Sculpture and painter who was the pioneer of this type of kinetic sculptures. In 1931 he invented this mechanism and Marcel Duchamp called his sculpture Mobile.
Mobiles
Wind Art

24. Design aesthetic: Fibonacci's Spiral
Screw Mobile(1956) is constructed from
suspended metal bars
The expression of the sculpture is through oscillation and spiral
The spiral is created based Fibonacci Sequence
Fibonacci's numbers:0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,...
“Kenneth Martin( ) sees the problem of movement in terms of a search for infinity through calculation. He considers that evolution of movement and form in plastic arts is the result of kinetic principles which relate intimately to life and sensation.”
Fibnacci Series

25. Automata
Automatas are a type of kinetic sculpture that mimic the image of human , animal, plant and environment with a long history from ancient Egypt, Greek to present.
Automata have been built for entering kings , impressing worshippers and for showing scientific mechanism. Autonomous robots are the current examples of ancient automata.
Jacques de Vaucanson( ) Created the digesting duck(1739) that was capable of metabolizing and defecating grain.
Arthur Gansen
Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721–1790) was a Swiss clock maker who built this automata( ) consisted of a draftman, a musician and a writer.
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

26. Rolling Ball Sculpture
Magnetic Sculptures
Nature and sculpture
Sachiko Kodama
Wave
Rolling Ball Sculpture
Rolling Sculpture

27. Luminous Kinetic Art
Luminous kinetic sculptures are a type of kinetic sculpture in which light is a key component of motion.
Frederic Kastner ( ) was a physicist and musician who invented Pyrophone (Gas Organ).
Kastner built this singing lamp -- a pyrophon with thirteen branches of lamp connected to keyboards
Louis-Bertrand Caste( ) invented the Colour Organ. The device was devised in such a way that the keys as well as operating hammers to make the strings vibrate regulated the appearance of colour bands.
Nicolas Schöffer

28. Tensegrity stuctures

29. Kinetic sculptures are metaphors for combining design, art and engineering.
“Technology is very seductive, and it is certainly changing the way things are designed and made and taught. The problem is when technology has seduced you away from thinking about things as deeply as you should.”
Arthur Ganson

30. Precedent: The Shape of Life and
Kinetic Surfaces

31. Biomorphism Art Movement
search biomorphic design

32. Organic Design
search organic design

33. Noguchi Table produced by Herman Miller

34. Ron Arad -- http://www.ronarad.co.uk/
See also --

35. Biomorphic Structures -- engineering firm

36. Biomemetic Design

37. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

38. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

39. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

40. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

41. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

42. Philip Beesley – architect and sculptor

43. Santiago Calatrava

44. Santiago Calatrava

45. Santiago Calatrava
search santiago calatrava garage door

46. Transformable structures – Hoberman

47. Transformers

48. Biomimicry – TED talk

49. Organic Design – TED talk
rganic_designs.html

51. Surfaces as interfaces

52. John Hobart Culleton and Anthony Diaz

53. Aegis Hyposurface-Kinetic Media fassade

54. Pneumatic muscles

55. Transformable structures – Hoberman

56. Adaptive Building Initiative