The Creator’s Project recently visited with kinetic sculptor Anthony Howe who creates kinetic artworks powered by wind. You might remember Howe from a piece here on Colossal back in July. Watch the video above to learn more about his artistic philosophy and watch some excellent footage of his hypnotic sculptures.
You can visit his website at the address below:
http://www.howeart.net/index.html
Netherlands based design group Studio Roosengaarde produced this interactive piece of public sculpture titled Marbles. Each of the forms are filled with sensors, LEDs, and speakers which allow them to interact not only with people engaged with them but also with each other.
One of the things I really like about this project is that everything about it lends itself to being really approachable. The scale, materials, and activity of the sculpture all add up to a piece that is, in the words of the designer, something of an “interactive playground”. See more of Studio Roosengaarde’s work at their website HERE.
Artist’s Story
(taken from her website, http://www.echelman.com)
Amsterdam project, suspended over the Amstel River
American artist Janet Echelman reshapes urban airspace with monumental, fluidly moving sculpture that responds to environmental forces including wind, water, and sunlight.
Echelman first set out to be an artist after graduating college. She moved to Hong Kong in 1987 to study Chinese calligraphy and brush-painting. Later she moved to Bali, Indonesia, where she collaborated with artisans to combine traditional textile methods with contemporary painting.
When she lost her bamboo house in Bali to a fire, Echelman returned to the United States and began teaching at Harvard. After seven years as an Artist-in-Residence, she returned to Asia, embarking on a Fulbright lectureship in India.
With the promise to give painting exhibitions around the country, she shipped her paints to Mahabalipuram, a fishing village famous for sculpture. When her paints never arrived, Echelman, inspired by the local materials and culture, began working with bronze casters in the village.
She soon found the material too heavy and expensive for her Fulbright budget. While watching local fishermen bundling their nets one evening, Echelman began wondering if nets could be a new approach to sculpture: a way to create volumetric form without heavy, solid materials.
By the end of her Fulbright year, Echelman had created a series of netted sculpture in collaboration with the fishermen. Hoisting them onto poles, she discovered that their delicate surfaces revealed every ripple of wind.
Today Echelman has constructed net sculpture environments in metropolitan cities around the world. She sees public art as a team sport and collaborates with a range of professionals including aeronautical and mechanical engineers, architects, lighting designers, landscape architects, and fabricators.
She built her studio beside her hundred-year-old house, where she lives with her husband David Feldman and their two children.
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Check out her TED talk here. More to come about her upcoming project in Philadelphia!
“Her Secret is Patience” in the Phoenix Civic Space
Public Artwork 