Kinetic Art: The Kinoptic System

Leonardo, Vol. 3, pp. 433-434. Pergamon Press 1970. Printed in Great Britain NOTES-NOTES In this section o/Leonardo texts notexceeding about 1200 words willbepublished. Notes will not be accompanied by abstracts and, generally, only three black and white illustrations will be allowed. Accepted Notes will be published more quickly than longer texts. Des textes ne depassant pas 1200 mots seront publies dans cette rubrique de Leonardo. Ces Notes paraitront sans resumes. Elles pourront are accompagnees , de maniere generale, de trois illustrations en noir et blanc. Les Notes acceptees seront publiees plus rapidment que les textes plus longs. KINETIC ART: THE KINOPTIC SYSTEM Valerios Caloutsis* When I came to Paris in 1953 as a painter in traditional media [1], I became acquainted with the works of several artists in the field of kinetic art. Those of Malina, Boto and Schaffer particularly interested me [2-4]. The first phase of my own work in this domain was devoted to making metal constructions in motion, however, the use ofelectric light for producing images projected from reflecting parts onto surfaces entranced me [5]. After trying various ways of using light, in 1965 I finally arrived at what I call my Kinoptic system (from the Greek, kinisis-motion and optiki-visual). This system permits projection of a kinetic light image from as little as 20 cm from a pictorial surface. It consists offour elements: (I) a light source (a clear incandescent bulb), (2) a fixed polished sheetaluminum reflector, (3) a rotating polished sheetaluminum reflector and (4) a synchronous-type electric motor to rotate element (3) (cf. Fig. 1.) These Fig. 1. Diagram of the Kinoptic system: (1) Light source, (2) fixed sheet-aluminum ref/ector, (3) rotating sheet-aluminum ref/ector and (4) electric motor. • Greek artist living at 4 rue Antoine Dubois, 75-Paris 6, France. (Received 13 May 1970.) 433 parts are contained in a box approximately 16 cm high, 24 cm wide and 10 cm deep. The light bulb (24 W, 6V) is housed within a metal container provided with a circular opening through Fig. 2 (a and b). Two pictures produced by 'Kinoptic 1', wall projection, 100 x 120 em, 1969. 434 Valerios Caloutsis Fig. 3. 'Kinoptic 53', enclosed unit with projection onto a trans/ucid screen, 50 x 70 cm, 1969. which the light beam impinges upon the fixed reflector . The fixed reflector directs the light beam onto the rotating reflector, which projects it through a slit in the box onto the pictorial surface. The forms of moving light images projected onto a surface are determined by the shapes given to the fixed and rotating reflectors. The speed of the continuously changing forms is controlled by the rotating reflector and the distance from the reflector to the pictorial surface. I find that when the reflector moves at one turn per minute the speed of changing forms is satisfactory. One can obtain a cycle of greater duration by using two or more reflectors rotating at different speeds in front of a larger fixed reflector. It is possible for a spectator to vary the range of images produced by the Kinoptic system in the following way. Two or more fixed, shaped reflectors are installed that can be placed in position to intercept the light beam by turning an external knob. Colored images can be made either by painting sections of the reflecting surfaces with transparent paints or by placing colored transparent materials tetween the rotating reflector and the exit slit in the box. In my first Kinoptic works, a one-meter square pictorial surface was attached to the projection box to make a single unit. The surface was a sheet of aluminum painted opaque white. The images can, however, be projected directly on a wall, whose larger surface permits more of the image produced by the projector to be seen (cf. Figs. 2a and 2b). Two or more Kinoptic boxes placed appropriately in a room create an environment of continuously changing light forms and colors. If the projector is hung on a wall with a translucid screen in front of it, one obtains a kinetic picture that appears to be suspended in space (cf. Fig. 3). A darkened room is...