Magnetic Sculpture

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The sculpting world was once one of marble and still life. It was a place where movement was impossible, and thus often a dead place where immobile representations stood like mausoleums. Then came the world of kinetic sculpting, where motion and movement were as much a part of pieces as were the sculptures themselves. Change was intentionally built into these modern designs, giving them life and a level of interactivity that’s something more than mechanical, and allows the dynamic environment to turn the sculpture into more than the sum of its parts.

Chinchilla’s coauthor Roger Fu from Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences tested the sculptures by first running a magnetometer over them and mapping out the areas with the strongest anomalies. Then the team chose four sculptures and ran further tests using a larger, more sensitive instrument. Takis's studio, he began developing it in the 1960s or the early 1970s and it wasn't completed until much later. The people of Monte Alto carved large stone heads in addition to potbellied sculptures, many of which are strongly magnetized, suggesting the 2,000-year-old culture was aware of magnetism. Keep these magnets at least a foot away from all magnetic media, including computers, hard drives, floppy disks, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, and credit cards. Keep them away from consumer electronics, including computer monitors, VCR's, TV's, cameras, cellphones, and personal music devices. Keep them away from things you don't want magnetized, like watches and tools. Keep them away from people with pacemakers or other implants. It's best to build a base for your sculpture. Instructables recommended using a cylindrical project box, which provides an ideal platform for displaying your finished piece. After heating up your hot glue gun, apply some of the glue to a few disc magnets and affix them to the inside of the box. If you follow this technique, you can actually use metal nuts and bolts to build sculptures on top of the project box. Note: The stronger the magnets you use, the taller the structures you can create.

Strandbeest by Theo Jansen

After priming and painting our nuts Ican’t say I recommend this step. The paint just doesn’t adhere well to the metal. It did add a lovely splash of color which was enticing to my kids but be prepared for lots of chipped paint!

Knowledge of magnetism could have even predated the Monte Alto culture, Chinchilla says. Archaeologists discovered a magnetized bar rich in hematite dating from 1400 B.C. to 1000 B.C. at San Lorenzo in the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, one of the major cities of the Olmec. If this bar was somehow used as a magnetic tool, it would mean that Mesoamerican knowledge of magnetic forces predates even the early descriptions by Thales of Miletus. MAGNETS ARE A CHOKING HAZARD AND WORSE! Magnets are one of the few items that when swallowed may need surgical removal. If you have a child who even stands the remote chance of putting a magnet in their mouth please save this activity until they are older. Alternatively complete adult supervision is required for this activity. To make it safer we used large industrial sized magnets rather than small neodymium magnets which are just too tiny and tempting for little ones to put in their mouth.Paris says that this Monte Alto discovery may just be scratching the surface, and that similar magnetic testing should be done on Olmec head sculptures as well as Maya artifacts to see whether the knowledge of magnetic forces was widespread among early Mesoamericans.

From keeping cabinet doors shut to cleaning up stray metal objects, there's no doubt that neodymium magnets can be extremely useful for a variety of purposes. But, did you know you can make stunning sculptures with them? Designed and made in the US these use the little known Bismuth which happens to be the most diamagnetic element. That means it repels both north and south poles. With a magnet at the top of the structure which provides the lift you are able to place a small magnet in either gap and watch as it floats, given stability by the diamagnetic property of the Bismuth (only one magnet can be placed in the sculpture at a time, either in the top or bottom hole).

HAND CRAFTED AND BUILT TO LAST

And while waiting for the train he becomes inspired by the flashing lights and the antenna and aerials that he sees around the station platform.