Mark

Lumino-Kinetic object






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The work is based on a draft from the year 1948, by a Croatian artist Antun Motika.

Motika is formally known as a semi-figurative painter but after his death a huge archive of notebooks with sketches for light and kinetic artworks were left to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.

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The drawing on which the work is based.
Original sketch from Antun Motika and the only source of information for constructing the work.
The notebook is dated from 1948.



The work is based on a draft from the year 1948, by a Croatian artist Antun Motika. Motika is formally known as a semi-figurative painter but after his death a huge archive of notebooks with sketches for light and kinetic artworks were left to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. I was commissioned by the Museum to make a “reconstruction” of one of his works. They thought that I was the most appropriate choice since, in my own work, I use similar technologies, and also, I am finishing my MA in Media Art Histories, this being exactly in the area of my expertise.

The Antun Motikas sketch for Lumino-Kinetic object is a very simple one and open to interpretations. It doesn’t give thorough instructions about how the work should be constructed. I have set the dimensions of the work based on the technical aspects of the work; the size of the balloons, space needed for electromagnetic valves... The construction is made transparent not to interfere with the surface of the work and to enable the shadow play as the background projection.

The work poses an interesting question about the authorship
- whose work this really is!? The meeting of two artists from different periods, that never actually met, and questions that each of them expresses through his own work. Also, it is interesting that today it’s not very difficult to construct this work, but it would be extremely or almost impossible to make it in the period when the idea for it was conceived.

Technical details:
• 20 x electromagnetic valve
• 20 x white latex baloons
• 20m PVC pipe
• Arduino Mega 2560
• 20 x Relay Module
• PIR Sensor
• Slide projector
• 2 postaments

Technical requirements:
• 50l air compressor
• Slide projector
• 2 postaments



The project is commissioned and supported by
Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia

Photo by Filip Beusan