Kinetica Art Fair 2013

I attended this event two years ago in 2011 and my first impressions this year was that it has obviously gained in popularity as I had to queue to get in.
I also remembered in 2011 that there were large pieces of art just outside the entrance but this year there weren’t any, did this mean the exhibit was smaller?
Certainly not, the show area was cram packed with amazing exhibits, it was also cram packed with people, a lot of families, not that that’s bad it just made it a little difficult to get close to some of the smaller works of art.

Kinetic Art is best defined as moving mechanical sculptures. In its early form movement was introduced by hand or by natural elements such as wind or rain.
Movement may also be obtained by steam and clockwork mechanisms.
Early forms were usually made out of recycled parts such as old bicycle wheels.
The art is evolving with technology and now it is far more common to see works incorporating electric motors, led lighting and even microprocessors.  

Everything at the show was rather interesting and very visual but with the exception of a few works of art I didn’t really see anything that different to the previous show I attended in 2011. The ideas were not new or even challenging technology and design.
I also couldn’t help feel that in a couple of cases the meaning of Kinetic had been lost as some items simply didn’t actually move!

Some art that did stand out were a number of large mechanical robots, my favourite being Edwin Rahardjo’s Floating Flet, some cleverly put together musical Lego, (Lego is finding its way into everything these days) and most interesting was the sound activated dresses by Rainbow Winters and a wearable robot device by Daniel Schatzmayr called Spider Dress.

Lighting effects are always a popular design choice and there were a number of interesting works that used lighting in some unusual and thought provoking ways.

Above is one of the exhibits by Edwin Rahardjo called Floating Fleet (2011), it resembles a flock of birds with harmonious wing beats uniting art, science and technology.

Daniel Schatzmayr’s robotic spider dress and Rainbow Winters interactive wearable sound activated dress.

Some of my other favourite works was by Aether & Hemera, a lighting artist who is more famous for creating large scale lighting effects that provoke immersive emotions, hence the heart!
Marco Kruyt's Treasuring the Particle, two moving robotic hands holding a particle of light and finally John Popadic and Harry Denholm combine their talents to build Oddity, a small box of light that allows the user to select a graphics algorithm and play with its inputs to vary the output within a predefined program.
Oddity is also a toolkit that comes complete with software that can be altered to produce custom effects using your own imagination.

It was a great exhibition but I will just mention how difficult it was to obtain information about any of the exhibits. I quickly realised that in some cases the people minding the items couldn’t answer any questions about how they work, how they were designed or made. They simply handed you a card or leaflet in response to any question.
Sorry to keep moaning but I also experienced a problem on my return after nipping out for a cigarette (yes I should give up), despite having a FULL ACCESS pass they were not going to allow me re-entry, luckily the girl changed her mind just before I had to play the “Don’t you know who I am card”

What I most liked about the show was the fact that I didn’t see anything like what I am designing. Maybe next year I will exhibit my creations.

For more information please visit the Kinetica Art Fair website http://www.kinetica-artfair.com