ARTE CINETICA E MECCANISMI:NUOVE TENDENZE ED APPLICAZIONI

ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the fundamentals of Kinetic and Robotic Art, still of significant relevance today, in light of the great technological development that has taken place in recent years in the fields of mechanics, electronics and information technology (mechatronics). The latter has greatly influenced the world of art, both from a purely artistic and aesthetic point of view, and in terms of the emotional message conveyed to the spectator, who is the ultimate user of the work of art itself. Kinetic or programmed art began in Germany in the 1950s thanks to an artistic movement called ZERO. This current spread like wildfire to numerous countries, including Italy, through the formation of other groups that remained very active in the following two decades, and became relevant again in modern times. Zero was the first artistic movement to anticipate Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Op Art, Minimalism, etc., because it was the first to create mobile installations or dynamic structures and realise an innovative form of art no longer based on the components of classical painting or on the typical elements of the natural world, but conceived using mechanised industrial products, and creating a thought that linked the two basic concepts of science and technology and transformed them into an artistic expression. The main objective of kinetic art is a complete reconsideration of the artistic space, involving the viewer as protagonist, on the one hand, and the sense of motion as an innovative artistic element with infinite expressive potential on the other. In particular, Kinetic Art focuses on the more psychological and gestalt-like structural aspects of the movement of the artwork, thus creating innovative dynamic structures, which are not only interesting machines from an engineering point of view, but also particularly attractive structures in terms of their artistic and expressive aspect, with the aim of psychologically capturing the viewer's attention. This research expresses the particular importance that the kinetic installations of artist and physicist Theo Jansen have in this artistic context. With his recent, complex artistic achievements, Jansen provides us with an excellent example of Kinetic Art, as a product of the synergy effect achieved between art and movement. Jansen is an exponent of the evolution of Kinetic Art, not the kind that thrives on virtual movements (electronics and information technology), but the kind that sees as its protagonists animated structures that come to life thanks to the action of the wind and in any case are destined to a designed motion by which they come to life and acquire an accomplished meaning (mechanics and mechatronics). Particularly significant are the Strandbeesten (beach beasts) capable of walking autonomously on the shoreline under the sole action of the wind, which succeeds in its action thanks to the aid of light materials and scientific-mathematical calculations. The structures created lead back to significant scientific contributions in the field of mechanisms - with particular reference to the lines of research of walking machines and walking & climbing robots - and, more generally, in the kinematics of mechanisms, but also and above all in the field of art, since they represent examples of Kinetic Art in which the fourth dimension of movement is added to the three spatial dimensions of sculpture or to the typical two dimensions of painting, which was also extended to the third dimension with the introduction of axonometry and perspective. The kinetic and robotic art presents contents of both social and technological development, as well as contents that can be spread in new methods of education, through the teaching of innovative technological processes based on the use of 3D printers and Additive Manufacturing, but also strongly engineering contents, such as those of the kinematics and mechanisms of Robotics. To highlight the idea of motion (movement), the horse was chosen as an example of perfect movement in nature but which can be reproduced with the same perfection in the movement of machines. In fact, this animal appears to our eyes as having harmonious but above all powerful movements, given its musculature, which is easily visible through its limbs. A large part of the research was devoted to the equestrian statue of the "Knight of Toledo" by William Kentridge, the South African artist emphasising the movement of the horse in spite of the static nature of the work itself, made of corten steel. The research also included artistic projects such as the presentation of works composed of freehand drawings made with the aid of charcoal pencils, tempera colours and watercolours, photographs, as well as the realisation of the engineering part of a kinetic artwork, which required skills in the area of engineering. This paper seeks to reveal the close relationship between art and technology, or, more precisely, between art and robotics, highlighting a new and superior synthesis between organic life and technology. Kinetic art does not represent an escape from the earthly world towards a dimension governed by technology, but a creative capacity to express the artistic and social thought of our time in technological ways.