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Two Kinetic Sculptures Face Off In A Kind Of Dueling Duet

Large robotic flowers sit opposite one another, spitting out sound.

What happens when two kinetic sculptures do battle? Does it create some sort of sonic vortex across space-time? Sadly not. But it does look and sound pretty impressive nonetheless, as this video of the installation Versus by David Letellier will help attest.

Looking like mechanical flowers that Darth Vader might grow, these sculptures sit opposite one another in a gallery space, shifting and interacting. Each consists of 12 triangular panels hinged and powered by six linear actuators, with loudspeakers and microphones at the center for playing and recording.

At regular intervals, one of the sculptures will produce a sound which the other analyzes and converts into movement. It then churns the sound back out, but altered by imperfections caused by people and the reverberation in the gallery space, like a mechanical game of Telephone. The pair continues to feed off each other, their robotic petals yawning open and hissing, recycling and evolving the original sound as it reacts to their environment.

[via Triangulation blog]