Action at a Distance Final | Robert Petruska

I chose this empty bookshelf in the back corner of the second floor of Hunt as the stripped cloth reminded me of cobwebs lending itself to the more abandoned feel of this corner. I enjoyed the way the overcast lighting through the window contributes to this eerie effect

The mechanism consists a network of twine attached together between metal O-rings that can be puppeteer-ed by manipulating a free hanging string. Some of the O-rings feature full attachment to the twine while others are threaded through allowing them to be able to slide across the twine.

The cloth string is held in tension across two bookshelves using winches that can lower and raise the tension causing the main string to rise and fall effectively becoming more free flowing or more rigid. The video above features the movement after the right winch is nearly completely tight creating this more curtain-like motion while the video at the top features the very billowy motion.

Here is a picture of one of the winches used with its O-rings rolled up. The winches I kept the design from the previous checkpoint as well as the cloth although I stripped it for more dramatic motion. However, I abandoned the previous motion study with cloth as I could not replicate the motion on a larger scale especially when I rebuilt/brought my setup from home back to Hunt. I also abandoned the crankshaft idea as I enjoy the effect of being able to manipulate the entire cloth flowing as a puppet device or game rather than a short period of motion.