ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Committed to making art which reacts to the greater needs of the world, I’ve been building light-powered robotic sculptures. They stand on their own as kinetic art, but are also intended to bring awareness of the unlimited availability of the sun to answer our growing energy needs.

As studies in interactive choreography, given sculptural form, the sculptures combine a high level of hand crafting with traditional materials such as bamboo and string, with robotics technology, electronics – including wireless communication, and contemporary materials such as carbon fiber, stainless steel and solar cells. Using wireless communication, they interact with each other in both motion and sound, creating their own musical language and choreographies.

Over many years as a computer animation artist, I specialized in modeling motion that emulated the richness of nature, using algorithmic approaches such as “dynamics” and “flocking”.  As a mobilist, I’m using these concepts, along with wireless communication, to generate similar complexities of movement in the physical world, from which emerge endlessly evolving music, motion and group behaviors. The sculptures generate electricity, with built-in solar cells, to power microprocessors, servo motors and propellers, giving them the ability to move about and make sounds in an improvisational fashion. 

Mobiles are inherently alluring, and embody the fantasies of flight and weightlessness, living in a state of constantly changing balance. They are, for me, an ideal vehicle for the imagination of a better future for the planet.  The interaction between dynamic elements reflects the social context in which they exist.  My works are expressions of joy, infusing movement and hope into their environments.