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Angus McGregor (left) and Caleb Balmer (right) in front of their poster of Len Lye’s Rotating Harmonic. Both are mechanical engineering students in their fourth year at the University of Canterbury and part of a research programme, run by Dr Shayne Gooch, to develop Len Lye’s kinetic sculptures to their full scale.
Angus and Caleb have designed a full scale working prototype of Len Lye’s Rotating Harmonic and they recently presented their research results and design work at a seminar at the University. Construction of the full scale work has begun. Angus can be seen holding the motor connecting shaft and Caleb is holding a bearing unit that fits within the wand mount on the table next to him.
Lye made a four foot high Rotating Harmonic in 1959. He experimented by shuttling a spring steel wire from side to side and by controlling the motor speed, induced the wire to whirl and form a three dimensional ‘virtual’ shape in space. He understood this transition as one of energy:
“So you’ve got a kind of drama going on whether this metal could accept this energy and you felt it as such-- there seemed to be some kind of living business and in a way it was.”
Scaling up Rotating Harmonic to its full size has presented the students with several challenges. For one, the forces that act on the base of a forty foot wand as it vibrates are one thousand times greater than those on the smaller, four foot wand! Nonetheless, Angus and Caleb’s had a ‘break through’ and found a way of reducing these loads that might otherwise have caused the large wand to fail. The Len Lye projects have captured the imagination of several engineering students. Caleb says: "I loved having the opportunity to combine the practicality of engineering and the creativity of art and produce a device that pushes the boundaries of modern materials."
The full scale Rotating Harmonic will be completed next year.
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