This article was taken from the March 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Rather like a contemporary Doctor Frankenstein, Peter Holden makes disembodied limbs dance on his command. The Leipzig-based British artist attaches body parts to a mechanical frame and programs their movements using a computer, to turn his sculptures into animations. "I had this idea of building a kaleidoscope of human body parts, and then I thought I could attach mechanical parts to it," explains Holden, 44. "The whole idea was quite grotesque -- but it's what you do to it that makes it become beautiful."
In SoleNoid, eight tap-dancing shoes controlled by electro-mechanical valves stamp and brush out a composition by Holden's musical collaborator Marko Wild. The effect is both haunting and playful, like watching a robotic version of Riverdance. Another piece, Arabesque, is a ballet of disembodied legs and hands -- the limbs are made of polyester and fibreglass, and are modelled from Holden's own. ("It's actually really hard to find a leg when you need one," he says.) In both cases, pre-programmed movements are controlled by computer-connected pneumatic pumps that are built into the sculptures; these release bursts of compressed air from cylinders. It takes Holden at least a month to choreograph the sequences, which he then writes into a piece of software.
His most complex creation, Vicious Circle, is a 5 x 4 x 1.5m installation of eight metal figures with human hands moving in sync to Sergei Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. Arranging the choreography was painstaking work: each hand required its own mechanism and contains six cylinders, and every cylinder has four points of adjustment (to control velocity). "To be able to adjust all these cylinders so that during the sequence each figure was identical in its movement was really extreme," he says. "Because of the limitations with this technology it isn't possible to do it perfectly. There is always an element of error."
His latest project is Autogene (on show at the IFVA Festival in Hong Kong until March 3), which replaces the limbs with eight umbrellas moving to the tune of "Singing in the Rain".
Robots: gotta dance.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
