OK, here’s a question: when is a sculpture a kind of musical performance? When it’s one of Swiss artist Zimoun‘s kinetic sound sculptures. Made using found materials like prepared DC motors, cardboard boxes, wire, plastic bags, fans, PVC hoses, and other elementary parts, their playful beauty lies in their numbers. Zimoun doesn’t just use a few DC motors, he uses 186 of them, and taken collectively, they create a powerful, mesmerizing effect that can sound like falling rain or hissing air or the humming interior of an empty spaceship. Arranged neatly against a wall or in a grid-like structure, their repetitive forms create patterns, and the mechanical aesthetic gives them an industrial, otherworldly look. You can see a variety of Zimoun’s works in the compilation video above, which incidentally, sounds like a sound designer’s wet dream.
[via Craftzine]
