paulcoxIn Pictures: Kinetica Art Fair 2009Material Beliefs explored alternative power sources for robots, including this machine powered by flies plucked from a spider's web. Tim Lewis's Pony, an unofficial Kinetica mascot, wasted no time making lots of friends at the fair. Chris O'Shea's grid of authoritarian lights followed trespassers wherever they walked. Ivan Black's visitor-powered spiral dominated the central hall and tested our faith in the hanging team. Another favourite theme of the artists was over-engineering, as in Artemis Papageorgiou's elaborate hack job on a collection of Wii remotes to create a fully digital set of windchimes. Giles Walker's scrapyard partybots were a favourite and sparked a human-versus-machine dance-off.
The Kinetica Art Fair brought the future to the vast hidden bunker of Marylebone's P3 this week, and we can confirm that the future remains both frightening and seductive. We're not just talking about the pole dancing CCTV cameras either — almost every project of the 25 contributors unsettled or delighted, often both at once. Though Steve Martin might say that photographing kinetic art is like dancing about architecture, here are a few shots of our favourites.
The Art Fair is finished now but keep an eye on the Kinetica Museum website for upcoming exhibits.
