If you ever wished your life could be as romantic as a movie, you may want to give this interactive sculpture a try. Adam Basanta, the Montreal-based artist known for his experimental sound sculptures, recently developed a new kind of kinetic artwork that virtually recreates that classic movie scene where two star-crossed lovers start to spin on the dance floor in a sort physical culmination of their courtship. A Truly Magical Moment replicates this romantic sequence, à la Titanic or Beauty and the Beast. Picture it: the tension has been building for the past hour-and-a-half, until finally, the fated pair gets the floor of a boisterous gala. Eyes locked, they start to spin and the room goes quiet. Everything around begins to blur.
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Basanta’s sculpture simulates this mesmerizing experience through an apparatus of iPhones, selfie sticks, and FaceTime software. Two iPhones are mounted onto separate selfie sticks with their cameras pointed at each other. The sticks are connected to a motorized pedestal that spins the two perpendicular rods in circles. Gallery visitors as well as remote users are invited to connect, via FaceTime, to the two iPhones that are part of the sculpture. Once they’ve connected, the participants come face-to-face through their phone screens. As they start to spin, a romantic score starts to play and the gallery space around them slowly starts to blur, though the image of one another ultimately stays in focus. The sculptures stop spinning after 60 seconds and a digital counter tallies another ‘"magical moment’" created through the sculpture. See it in action below:
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