Page 30 - Studio International - February 1967

The luminous trend in kinetic art

`The implications of the use of real light (and real movement) definitely point towards action rather than
contemplation, however much the "artistic" side of luminous art continues to exert its influence.'

Frank Popper

The birth and development of new tendencies in art seem trend is named. By this process more or less variable limits
to follow a particular pattern. Artists throughout the are set, although the provision of these limits inevitably
world attempt to go beyond the work of previous periods, gives rise to controversy and misunderstanding.
and to find new approaches on an individual level. At the This is the pattern which has been followed in the case of
same time, certain features of their innovations are crys- Kinetic art. The element of movement has been present
tallized—geographically, around centres like Paris, Lon- in art since prehistoric times, expressed in terms of line,
Movement in art—the don and New York, and aesthetically, around particular colour, volume and material and determined by the
developing use of light
effects techniques of expression. The rallying point of this new relevant art-form—painting, sculpture, design, etc. But
© Frank Popper development is provided by a linguistic formula: the new when real physical movement was introduced into the
plastic arts, the conditions for a new art were laid. The
most simple method was the introduction of movement in
three-dimensional works, either by mechanical means
(`machines') or by natural means (`mobiles').
Already some of these early works—in particular those
of Moholy-Nagy— threw a bridge towards another group
of experiments which utilized artificial light as one
dominant feature. These were sometimes close to the
contemporary developments in abstract film, but they
had other origins, of which stage-lighting and 'colour
organs' were the most important. In the 1920's, when
Kinetic art was born, the abstract film experiments of
Eggeling, Richter and Ruttmann, and the Bauhaus re-
search which gave rise to the Reflected Light Plays of
Schwerdtfeger and Hirschfeld-Mack, were being de-
veloped at the same time as the projection instruments
with keyboards devised by A. B. Klein, Mrs Hallock-
Greenewalt and, in particular, Thomas Wilfred, whose
Clavilux instrument was a vast improvement on Scria-
bin's rather unsuccessful `Tastiera per Luce'.
With Thomas Wilfred it is really possible to speak of a
new art of light (which he himself referred to as `Lumia').
In his work, as in most of these experiments, real move-
ment played an important role, and the two-dimensional
plane was used as a 'support' for the projections. This new
art was independent of the cinema in the first stages, but
much of its energy was channelled into the cinema and
the advertising world. It was only in 1950 that the plastic
art of light was resuscitated, simultaneously with the re-
vival of other Kinetic researches. At this stage a definite
link was established between the art of light and two other
types of research, involving three-dimensional construc-
tions and works which required participation or manipu-
lation by the spectator. All three were classed under the
general heading of Kinetic art. Purely 'optical' works—
based on visual effects—played an important part in
establishing this new category, and in many cases they
provided the stepping stones towards more ambitious re-
search in the field of real movement.
The works using the movement of light took several
forms—pictures hanging on walls, free-standing objects,