For the Force of Friction or Kinetic Art project my group and I created a moving window thats shutters flip up using pulleys, wood, nails, laser cutters and many other tools. This is our artist statement for the piece from exhibition.
Window Kinetic Art By: Bella, Gigi, Maritza, Emma, and Alondra
At a glance, this piece might look like an average window, but like most things, the more you look the more the details become apparent. Starting with a cardboard prototype, this was created by people who came up with a challenge, sketched the cardboard, created a adobe illustrator file, printed it out on a laser beam cutter,tinted the wood boards, assembled a pulley system and never gave up. When the two window covers are pulled up by the pulleys, this now gives the slides potential energy. When the pulleys are pulled with rope, this creates resistance and kinetic energy, including the covers who are being moved due to the force of the rope which is attached. Since the covers are connected to the wood by screws, this acts as their axes when being rotated around the frame of the window. This piece as a whole demonstrates translations due to the fact that it turns and moves by the pulleys. This piece was inspired by the undocumented immigrants whose lives are constantly being turned upside down and completely changed, much like the covers on the window. With this piece, we knew everything counted, even the shape of the window, which represents a new chapter of the immigrant's life opening up as well as having a glimpse of what life could be lie, which is a reality for those who are put into detainment centers or don’t make the journey to the U.S.. With this piece, precision and accuracy was the key component, and as a group we knew this was important for us to get right when we represented not only the rotation of physics in a kinetic art piece, but also the journey of someone's world spinning around them, a reality for so many people who cross the border each year.