The word “kinetic” is most often used to refer to artwork that moves. A kinetic sculpture is one that makes some sort of interesting motion, while a kinetic piece is art that consists of motion.

A famous example of kinetic art is the clock in Prague’s Old Town Square, which shows the phases of the moon and has an automaton of a knight riding around on his horse. Another example would be this little pendulum-powered device I made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_etgLlNpXHc

Kinetic art was popular in the mid-twentieth century, and has seen a resurgence in popularity recently due to advances in 3D printing technology. This article will look at what kinetic art is, how it works, and what role 3D printing can play in its creation.

3D printing is still in its infancy, so it will be a while before we see kinetic art installations of the scale and complexity of these sculptures. As 3D printing technology becomes more advanced and accessible, however, I believe we will see an explosion of kinetic art in the coming years.

Till then, be sure to check out this awesome video by the artist above.

Kinetic art is a type of art that is self propelled or motorized. It is often created using motors, computers, gears, and other mechanical devices. As its name suggests, kinetic art can be seen to move or work.

Kinetic art was originally called automata, which means machines that move themselves. The movement can occur in many ways. However, the most common type of movement is mechanical movement, or movement that uses gears and levers. In this way, kinetic art usually involves some sort of machinery or electronic device that moves the piece along with the help of laws of physics.

The term kinetic was used in the 1960s to describe any artwork that appeared to move on its own. This included such things as light shows and sculpture that moved through the use of motors.*

Kinetic Art can be described as a form of artistic expression that contains both an engineering and an artistic component.*

The word kinetic is derived from the Greek word kinesis, which means “motion”. Kinetic art is a form of art that often incorporates motion and can be defined as a work of art in any media that has movement.

This form of art is also known as movement art or mechanical art, however these terms are ambiguous because all art has some element of movement and the term movement art could also be applied to moving sculpture. The term kinetic was first used by Azuma Makoto in his book Kinetic Energy in 1968 when he was discussing the ideas and works of artists such as Naum Gabo, Ernst Benkert, Jean Tinguely, George Rickey and Robert Morris who were exploring the potential of motion in sculpture.

While this form of art had been developing since the late 19th century it wasn’t until the first decade of the 20th century, with the development of mechanical clocks and automatic music players (such as player pianos), that artists such as Max Ernst began to explore this new area of artistic expression. As technology developed through the 1960s and 1970s interest in this type of work grew rapidly with many artists producing work that explored new technologies such as electronic and solar powered machines, kinetic light sculptures and kinetic installations.

Kinetic Art

The term “kinetic art” was coined in the early 20th century by the Russian sculptor and art theorist Naum Gabo to describe moving sculptures. In the late 1960s, American artist Robert Rauschenberg and his frequent collaborator, John Cage, started creating kinetic art using a variety of techniques.

The term “kinetic art” today is applied more broadly to two dimensional and three dimensional works which “move”, and even to static forms which appear to “move” when observed from certain angles, or with a certain level of attention. Also included are static works that are intended to appear animated, such as flip books.

Toys fall into this latter category, appearing to be a form of kinetic sculpture. Icons of pop culture such as Mickey Mouse and Bart Simpson are created through rotoscoping (tracing over film footage frame by frame), lending them a cartoon-like quality; thus they too may be considered kinetic sculptures.

Kinetism, kinetic art or kineticism, is a movement in modern art that developed in Russia in 1913–14 as an outgrowth of Cubo-Futurism, specifically the work of Kazimir Malevich. The movement was in part a protest against the World War I, with the idea of movement being one of the most important contributions of the movement.

Tatlin’s Tower was designed and built for the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets, to be a tower hundreds of meters high that would move around on giant wheels.

The Kinetic movement was also influenced by Futurism and De Stijl movements. In his book “From Cubism to Suprematism” (1913), Malevich cites Henri Bergson’s theory of motion to justify the dynamic representation of time and space: “Everywhere I turn there are objects hurrying past me.”Kinetic art as practiced by Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Naum Gabo and others involved the creation of moving art using mechanical means. The works were mechanical drawings and sculptures rather than paintings. The works reflected an interest in mass production and industrial materials—steel, rubber and bronze—as well as a desire to explore three-dimensional space.*