“Kinetic Membranes” is an installation where a set of fabric membranes suspended in a cube are manipulated by servos based on user input through movement or a midi tablet.

The artist, Dionysus, is a designer with a background in architecture and some experience doing development work. The approach he took and the suite of tools he used reflect this background.

The phase of this project involved exploring form and fabric properties when suspended in a cube. He constructed a cube from millboard and started testing out a variety of fabrics.

Here is a movement prototype he produced at the time:

At this point he had cycled through a bunch of fabrics, starting with latex, but found that it tore at the attachment points and had too much tensile force. After trying a number of other fabrics, they finally settled on using nylon fabric.


Features of the work we could explore in future works could include the material exploration. The artist tried out several different fabrics before finding one that created the effect they wanted with the appropriate level of durability: nylon.

One detail that wasn’t immediately apparent was how the movement of the installation was derived. Movement can actually be controlled through a midi controller or through movement, through a xbox kinect.

Links:
– https://dionysus.works/project/kinetic-membranes/
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qskPHo-4xcw&t=81s