Moving Architecture in the 4th Dimension – Really Moving!

In major cities, we take motion for granted when seeing blinking neon and fluorescent signs, when in rotating restaurants on top of buildings, and seeing the flashing lights from passing cars.  All of this helps create the overall energy of that city.  As we move around and within architectural spaces, artists and architects are finding new dynamic ways to create 4-dimensional movement.  One of the many examples is the ILUMA Urban Entertainment Centre in Singapore.  Designed by the Singapore architecture firm WOHA Architects, it uses rhythms of lights on the facade to create a calming illusion of movement: 

Electricity is not always required to make 4-dimensional movement.  The prominent sculptor, Ned Kahn  uses the forces of nature such as wind, fire, sun, water, etc. in creating rhythmic movement within his work. A great example of Kahn’s work in architecture is in Minneapolis. The Wave, at the Target Field, easily moves with the slightest wind:

Another great example is the Articulated Cloud on the Pittsburgh Childrens’ Museum:

If you are not familiar with Kahn's work, here is a great intro.:

Most modern cities have signage that gives the illusion of movement using lights.  An updated example is on the top of

Target headquarters by architect Ellerbe Becket. It can be easily seen in the downtown Minneapolis skyline.  Rather than neon, it uses 700,000 LED lights to show intricate animated illusions. The light system was originally developed by 3M and Martin Professional (Denmark) using changing color tubes.   These were recently changed to LED to reduce energy use, while increasing light, and image flexibility.  The image themes change frequently and are not used for commercial use:

What if an entire building moved in a cityscape?  The visionary David Fisher, architect of Dynamic Architecture, has plans to have each floor move independently.  The purpose is to create the optimal and ultimate views from windows; views ever changing.  He hopes to have one of these 4-dimensional buildings in major cities such as London, Paris, Moscow, Dubai, New York, etc.  Here are some examples:

I hope to see one of these buildings eventually get constructed.  Architects and artists are ever pushing the boundaries of 4D spaces.


What of the other viewpoint of the 4th dimension? For clarification see the second half of “Art in the 4th Dimension”. 

An impressive example of this type of 4-dimensional architecture is the Grande Arche de la Défense in Paris, France. This huge hypercube building is designed by Danish architect Otto von Spreckelsen. By using the form of a hypercube, its purpose is to be a 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe.

Three Influential Women Artists in the UK working with 4D

Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s work evokes the art of Bridget Riley, a British painter. Her work from the early 1960s used bold black and white graphics in rhythm causing the perception of movement, which was later called Op Art. Her work influenced fashion, graphic design, and advertising of the 1960’s. She still is an active artist currently working with screen-printing. The following is a good example of this artists work from the 1960s:

Bridget Riley Movement in Squares 1961 Tempera on Hardboard

Bridget Riley Blaze 1 1965 Emulsion on Hardboard

Bridget Riley Arrest 1 1965 Emulsion on Hardboard

Dianne Harris, currently the artistic director and curator at the Kinetica Museum in London, uses robotics, photography, and multi-media to create participatory and visionary sculptures. This artist’s use of technology, sculpture, and installation is very much a reflection of our time. Her powerful 4 dimensional sculpture, “Woman with Burning Vision” is a great example:

If you have seen the moving fish on the side of this blog, it is an interesting coincidence that the artist Julie Freeman’s artwork “The Lake” uses the movement of actual fish (their relationships, popularity, and activity levels) to create a complex 4 dimensional multimedia art piece. The art moves digitally as fish activities alter and change; an interesting parallel to human sociology research. This video shows the construction of this collaboration of art and science:

I hope you, as I, look forward to seeing more work from these great visionaries of 4D art.

4 Dimensionalism in Painting

“What I am seeking... is a motionless movement, something equivalent to what is called the eloquence of silence...”

Joan Miró

For Joan Miró, in his latter years, four dimensional painting was a theoretical type of painting in which painting would transcend its two-dimensionality and even the three-dimensionality of sculpture. He could have been talking about the work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka. If you have been wondering about the perceived motion of this blog's header, it is Akiyoshi Kitaoka's work on the eye's response to color that creates the 4 dimensional motion. He is the professor of psychology at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. Akiyoshi Kitaoka extensively studies visual illusions (geometrical illusions, lightness illusions, color illusions, motion illusions) and other visual phenomena including visual completion or perceptual transparency. Then he translates those into graphic images. Here are two more of his images:

"Expansion" by Akiyoshi Kitaoka

"Rollers" by Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Remember the other viewpoint of the 4th dimension? If not look at the article,“Art in the 4th Dimension” below. Tony Robbin is best known for interpreting this perspective in 4 dimensional paintings (again...not time). Here is one of his images.

"Painting 2006-7" by Tony Robbin

Since this perspective of the 4th dimension is confusing, here is a video (in 4 parts) with a clear explanation (only if you have the time):

PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE PART FOUR

What is a Zoetrope?

It’s all about animation. Most likely you are familiar with flipbooks. A zoetrope uses similar fixed images seen in sequence each in a split second repeatedly, giving the illusion of motion. But the zoetrope uses a slotted cylinder with images on the inside. When looking through the slots, as the cylinder spins, the inner images seem to move. Here is a good visual explanation of a traditional zoetrope:

You can find more historical information here, but I am more interested how the zoetrope is used in sculpture. I remember seeing a zoetrope when I was very young. It wasn’t until resently that I became interested in making 4D sculptures with reference to a zoetrope. The following pictures are my very small 4 dimensional sculptures. After hanging them on trees, they spin in the wind; the small shapes with letters then move.

In this blog is a video of another piece I’ve made called DNA Prayer Wheel (look to the upper right). It’s a larger piece suspended by a string inside the box. When the viewer blows on the side, the piece winds up and spins. It was entered in the All-Student Juried Art Exhibition at Augsburg College in April of 2010. DNA Prayer Wheel was selected as 1^st Place – Award of Excellence by jurors / artists Betsy Byers and Cecilia Ramón.

Now for a large zoetrope. The following is an installation in Venaria, Italy by Artem Limited from the UK. They made the BRAVIA-drome for Sony that was used for a Sony advertisement. It’s quite impressive:

Next are sculptural zoetropes. Dimensional zoetropes use strobe lights to create the illusion of motion. Peter Hudson is a master artist in the use of dimensional zoetropes. His "Deeper" was displayed at Burning Man in 2004. Here is a good look at it:

There are many more types of animations techniques such as phenakistoscopes, praxinoscope, zoopraxiscope, mutoscope, and flip books, but I hope you enjoyed seeing these zoetropes.

Start seeing 4 Dimensional Sculpture

Whether called 4D, motion, or kinetic sculpture, sculptors that work with the fourth dimension usually consciously focus on how their art is affected by movement. Typically the movement is necessary to tell the sculptor's meaning in the piece, obviously, otherwise it would be done in the third dimension. Theo Jansen is a good example. He creates walking sculptures that use the wind to create motion. Although the following is an advertisement, it is a good example of Jansen’s work:

Not all 4D sculpture is this complex. Street graffiti artist, Joshua Allen Harris, uses the wind created by subway vents to create intriguing 4D sculptures:

The use of motors are more common to create movement in 4D sculptures. This kinetic sculpture is also aided by the use of a computer. Made by Art+Com, a design agency in Berlin, Germany, this piece uses metal spheres on wires:

Arthur Ganson is fairly well known by 4D artists. His pieces are like living machines that take on human traits. This movie short was made using his Machine with Wishbone:

Here is Ganson’s "Child Watching Ball". Note that the sculpture must be moved with the aid of the viewer:

Here Arthur Ganson talks about his work:

I will leave you with a work called Morpho Towers - Two Standing Spirals by Sachiko Kodama, which uses liquid magnets and electricity in its movement.

I hope this gives you a little taste of what is happening in 4D sculpture. Next post I will discuss zoetropes.

Art in the 4th Dimension

I thought I would start this blog by defining my view of four dimensionalism. There are actually two different interpretations. It’s interesting to note that both views are interpreted in art. The first view (philosophers call it the ontological view) is seeing an object in terms of time, and as a result the object shows movement. A sculpture that moves can be caused by wind, motors, light, heat, etc. becoming 4 dimensional art (this moving Bicycle Wheel sculpture - 1913 by Marcel Duchamp - is a good example). Of course moving pictures and dance are also 4 dimensional arts, but I will mostly focus on kinetic sculpture, painting, and graphic arts in this blog.

In this first view of 4 dimensionalism, the dimensions are expressed as the following:

• 1st dimension - a line


• 2nd dimension - a flat plane – a drawing or painting on a piece of paper


• 3rd dimension - a shape – a sculpture


• 4th dimension - a shape moving in a given space. – a sculpture moving through space

The other view is called spacial 4th dimension in which length, width, and height have one more addition (not time). This gets into some physics; so bear with me. First it means that one dimensional lines together make a 2 dimensional plane (let’s say a square). Then 2 dimensional planes together make a 3 dimensional shape (a cube). Then that would mean; 3 dimensional shapes together would define a 4 dimensional thing (called a tesseract or a hypercube). Ok if you have not fallen asleep…here is a sculpture that follows this school of thought:

"Octacube" by Adrian Ocneanu

So in this blog, there will be many additions of videos showing 4 dimensional art that I hope you will enjoy.