Structures before Kinetic Art Practice

Before art, I was interested in understanding why some systems could produce results despite difficult conditions.

I was looking for the relationship between structures, systems and results.

The encounter with Jesús Soto’s Penetrable Azul gave me a way to explore these questions through art.

Kinetic practice allowed me to work with structures, materials, space, perception and movement, and to observe how their relationships affect the result.

I learned that a work can be carefully planned without its final result being completely predictable.

I also discovered that structures do not only impose constraints. They can offer degrees of freedom.

The work has a defined beginning and end, but the questions it produces remain open.

This is what turned kinetic art from an encounter into a continuing field of research.

I was 30 years old.

I managed a furniture business.

25 people crew.

The national economy was challenging.

You had to look for ways to be productive.

You had to focus on what worked.

I was looking for examples of systems that could work despite their environment.

I was trying to understand what makes a system work despite its conditions.

Without structure, there is no progress.

There is progress if you have a good structure.

What remains is work.

I was looking for answers from the sources I knew: academics, business mentors, coaches, marketing specialists.

The truth was that the economy was collapsing. No one knew what to do... we were not able to do anything to stop it.

It was like living inside a bubble, within a lawless land.

An economic system crash was coming. No one could predict when it would happen.

Many left to other countries. Others resigned themselves to reality.

I found art.

Kinetic Art.

I experienced the work of Jesús Soto in a solo exhibition at the local art museum. It was a retrospective.

“That day, my life changed.”

Days later, I found myself thinking about what kind of structure was required to build such a piece:

• how much it weighed;

• the tension between materials;

• the painting process;

• the experience.

I come from an engineering field, so I understood how forces relate to each other.

You have to be very creative to think about this kind of piece, but you also need an analytical mind to solve the issues involved in making it.

This is when I began to look at how structures are related to results.

If you want to change the results, you have to change the structures.

What began with an observation soon developed into artistic research.

I wasn’t alone. I had a mentor; he gave me hints; I had to work them out.

But first, I needed to face my wife.

She knows me better than most people, sometimes better than I know myself.

It was not a shared decision.

I made the decision, and I had to commit to it.

The environment was pressing. Fear was part of it.

I had to overcome it.

01.

Structure and Perception

What we experience is a consequence of the relationship between structure, organization, elements and effects.

Creative impulse takes you to the starting line.

A creative discipline allows you to finish the race.

Discipline builds the personal structure required to make things happen.

The artwork occurs through the relationship between the structure, the space and the observer.

Tension is built through the interrelation of elements.




02.

Structure and Results

There is an intention to control every effect, shade and consequence.

The creative process begins with 2D computerized models.

We have to imagine, visualize and interpret what will happen when those elements become 3D.

The structure can be planned.

The result can be anticipated.

The result always surprises you.

The tension between controlling what exists, challenging it, and finding new patterns, even when everything has been predetermined, is what keeps me engaged.




03.

Color and Environment

Color is more than a compositional element.

The behavior and interaction of color can alter the environment.



Kinetic Avila #330. This work studies the tension between natural forms and optical and kinetic decomposition.




04.

Kinetic Work as a System

I found a way to understand systems, structures and behaviors.

How they are related to a space, an organization or a person.

Results are conditioned by the underlying structures of an organization, an individual or a space.

Every element seems to be part of a larger system, interacting with other systems and structures.

Structures can be internal or external.




05.

Finished Work / Open Investigation

Kinetic artwork has a clear beginning.

A defined finish.

You know when the artwork is ready.

But it leaves hypotheses and unanswered questions.

It seems to be inexhaustible.

A series can take years of study.


06.

Degrees of Freedom

There was a time when my laptop broke while I was working on a piece that had to be delivered.

Until then, I had relied on 2D computer models to define most of the details before building the physical work.

I had to continue without the model.

At first, I tried to reproduce what I had already planned.

Then I began to work directly with the structure.

I discovered the degrees of freedom that the structure offered.

A structure can constrain the work, but it can also create possibilities.

Art did not give me answers.

It gave me a way to observe.

Through kinetic art, I found a way to understand structures, systems and behaviors, and how they relate to spaces, organizations and people.

I learned that results are not isolated. They are conditioned by the structures behind them.

Some structures can be changed.

Some results can be changed.

Not everything is under control.

The work can be planned, but the result can still surprise you.

This is what keeps the investigation open.

I do not need to know the answer before I begin.

I need to understand what is within my reach, and work from there.

Over time, I understood that these observations were not limited to kinetic art.

The same structures of thought can be studied and expressed through different forms: writing, business, consulting, lectures and research.

The medium changes.

The investigation continues.

RESEARCH THEMES

This essay is part of the Structured Audacity research archive.