Page 19 - Studio International - February 1967

accidentally they started moving, and I expression. I can't say that it's a new movement that this style, whether the work is a 'viewing platform'
thought it was very fascinating. Later on, is going to die or live; it's got to find its own destiny. spectacle or one directly involving the spectator,
Now maybe its destiny is cruel, and after two years expressive order is necessary. In the latter case the
travelling by airplane, I saw for the first
we won't hear about kinetics, but we have to take our participator, who may have one or many decisions to
time the radar scanners moving as if
chances and not fear what is going to happen after a make, must be sensible of the nature of the work. To
directed by an invisible power. I tried to few years. As far as we believe it, we have to sustain take an example from another medium, the drummer
make things move from a distance. I the consequences of our belief. So many times the in Stockhausen's 'Zyklus' must be not only executant
remembered having seen, just after the direction of art has been changed, nothing is pos- but creative artist-partner.
sible but our actual destiny. . . . In a work or in a section of a work there is in the con-
war, a newsreel showing how the English
Paris is a very peculiar city in that for a long time it structing process a field of possibilities which it is
had detected the German airplanes before
has been very hospitable—for a long time artists have necessary to limit. One extracts a particular form from
they arrived in England. Going deeper into wanted to stay there, because they could feel free, no a type-form and/or one goes in a very particular way.
the subject, I discovered that they func- matter what direction they took. And while I don't It is natural to begin by finding an instance, then later
tioned by magnets. Therefore, I used mag- know America, of course, I sense that in America to discover the field and grow to understand its
nets to move an object. But again, quite every time there is a movement there is a strong possibilities and meanings. However, when one be-
fanaticism, and there is no space for anything else, comes mature in this respect, defining and exploring
accidentally, I saw that when a magnet
which I think is totally wrong. I think to have real the limited character becomes dynamic, for intellect
came close to an object, the object lost its development in art, we need space. We need to and feeling combine with the tangible. One is making
weight. I felt this marvellous thing, defying express ourselves without getting involved in fana- an object which has fundamentals similar to other
gravity. . ticism, which is a very negative thing. objects, but differs in the nature of its expressiveness
.
and evocativeness. And, if the object one makes as a
Today we feel the need to go through the piece of work of art has as its 'event nature' actual movement,
art and participate in its own life. I think there is a Kenneth Martin there does not seem much point to see how great a
great need today for art itself to live, like human passage of time or how many changes can be
The development of kinetic art as a specta- achieved in a cycle or form, unless one is truly seek-
beings, like us, ourselves, so we can sit next to it and
be like it, so the art is like another person. Also I cular one is now very well under way. ing and exploring, as an artist, an ordered system or
believe the work of art has to become old in the way Magic and the dramatic are readily appre- the very nature of randomness. Art is based on
we become old, and a new generation is going to ciated and this is true for kinetic art when variety within repetition and on oppositions (of the
create a new art to follow this older art. With their latter completeness and incompleteness is an
earlier conventional ideas of an art work
own lives they will create the art of their own time.... example).
If I have to offer homage, I'll offer it to Thales of are no longer a barrier. Kinetic as process It is not sufficient for the artist to be objective solely
Miletus, also to Newton, and to Maxwell, because is not so easily recognized or accepted by in the manipulation of materials and appearance.
those people discovered motors. Thales of Miletus artist or public—perhaps for fear of acade- The work has to have meaning and, in the abstract
was the first to be occupied with electricity, with the micism or art for art's sake. Nevertheless it work, the meaning lies wholly in the actuality. It is in
electron, with the magnetic stone. It takes more is there to be used and comprehended, the achieving of this that I see the true practicalities
spirit to create a motor than to manufacture canvass and possibilities of kinetics.
and paint. . . . whether the material of the work is paint,
You have to make things appear much simpler than wood, metal, plastic or an electric fre-
they actually are. My intention is not to make some- quency. Frank Malina
thing complicated; for me, just a piece of magnet and With regard to material ; the lively art tends to usethat We live at a moment in time when, because
a nail floating there can make me meditate. So I don't of its own time and to exploit the modern crafts for of man's first steps in exploring extra-
need to make an atomic reactor. My attitude towards manipulating it where possible. But also there are
scientists is one of great respect, and I wish them to changes, metamorphoses. For instance, the princi- terrestrial space, we are more conscious of
feel the same respect towards the artists today, and ples of pure science and practical science have the universe, both intellectually and visually
break this isolation which has lasted for centuries. I fundamentals which can be more important to the than at any time since Copernicus led the
wish there could be much closer contact between artist than his use of a particular practical science. overthrow of the Earth-centred cosmos. The
artists and scientists—much, much greater con- This can lead to the transference of an idea from one galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets and moons
tact. . . . material to another. His imagination is stimulated by
In the Symposium of Plato, Plato got Socrates talking the reality of an analogy and the discoveries of the that we can see with our naked eyes or
and giving a definition of art. And Socrates said that possibiilties of a medium. through magnifying instruments or re-
for him the person who discovers and who makes a I have at times defined the elements of kinetics which corded on photographic plates make up a
thing which is invisible evident, is an artist, and I I first learned to classify from the works of W. K. universe that appears to us as a silent
think this statement is the most accurate statement Clifford. Because of their pervasion in and equivalence almost static panorama. That it is not static
that has ever been made. . . . with the world of sensation and feeling, it is possible
I think pieces of sculpture have their own timing. I to construct works of art with them and the chosen we know, for the Earth, for example, turns
think it is extremely interesting to watch the move- material. This is not new, it was understood by the on its axis once every twenty-four hours,
ment of sculpture—it has to be like talking or music. earliest artists. It is possible to consider and to feel a and it travels around the sun at some 70,000
In fact many artists use music when on their own. I radial line as a movement outwards or inwards, or a miles per hour. There are turbulent storms
find it absolutely necessary. Somebody who wants to tangential line as a passage across. Both can have a on the sun, comets zooming through the
be understood has to talk and have a certain rhythm conceptual and emotional significance. There can be
in his own speech. And since works of kinetic sculp- layer upon layer of meaning and feeling within such void and other motions of matter in the far
ture are more expressive by their own movement elementary things. In the process of construction reaches of space.
their timing is extremely important. . . . rhythm can be felt as temporal, since it uses the It was with these images and thoughts in mind that I
Sculpture today doesn't have anything to do with fundamentals of kinetics. Ordered rhythm can turn conceived, in the spring of 1965, the composition of
traditional sculpture. hope that is so, because what back on or into itself, stretch out or contract, be the kinetic mural The Cosmos while watching the con-
we have to do with any tradition is very little. The way broken, come to a conclusion or be endless. The struction of the new building of Pergamon Press at
of life today is completely changed, totally changed. mind, through the senses, moves along its path. Too, Oxford. The mural might be called an expressIon of a
So I hope that we represent our time. . . . it can be defined by number so that one can write out 'peaceful' cosmos; not that, in reality, the universe is
I would say that kinetic sculpture is not a new move- a score for a work. The artist can then invent his rules always so. Events of cataclysmic proportions are con-
ment, but it's a further development of what has of the game, but the arbitrary has to become the stantly occurring. Still man, that fragile creature of the
already been. The past fifty years have been very universal. It is in this too that kinetics as process are Earth, dares to venture forth farther and farther away
uneasy years for our whole civilization, after the useful. from his planetary cradle. The artist, in his turn, is
explosion of the atom and the electronic develop- We havetwo fields of study. Kinetic as a fundamental challenged to find aesthetic significance in these
ments. Anyway, I think that it is a development of of art and kinetic art which is an evolving style. In experiences or to mock them In despair.