Peter Jansen, Kinetic Sculptures
English photographer Eadweard Muybridge became a pioneer of capturing movement when he took position on a popularly-debated question of the day: his photographic sequences proved that all four feet of a horse were inexplicably off the ground at the same time while trotting. Late Dutch artist Peter Jansen took on a similar study when he began his series of dynamic sculptures titled “Human Motions”. The project observes the dynamism of the human figure in motion and the visual magic that occurs when we slow things down, frame by frame.
Jansen’s art work is in fact entirely real, created using Materialise.MGX, a method employing 3D printing and rapid manufacturing techniques such as stereo-lithography. Soccer players, runners, and the classical nude, a nod to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.”, are portrayed in trailing sequences of movement expressed in a single sculptural image.
Jansen explained that his work is based on his ideas about transposition and movement, using the shapes of the human body to create energetic spaces. “I was curious how the total shape of a human in motion in time would be,” he explained.