A transparent plastic ball filled with helium floats in an all white room. Attached are 300 charcoal sticks that make the ball look a bit like a flu germ, a “a post-industrial creature” that awaits interaction with an enthusiastic, hands-on audience. This is artist Karina Smigla-Bobinski‘s ADA, a toy-like kinetic sculpture that leaves black marks wherever it makes contact on walls, ceilings, floors, hands, etc… And though people try to control where it touches and how it spins, its lines are often independent and unpredictable.
Smigla-Bobinski has exhibited this “post-digital drawing machine” around the world, including Brazil, Namibia, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, the UK, and the USA, as shown in the video above. The name ‘ADA’ references English mathematician Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.
For more, check out a 360º view of an ADA installation space, and see how ADA’s charcoal spikes are attached by hand:
Enjoy more favorite installations, including Obliteration Room, Tape Paris, Motoi Yamamoto’s intricate, temporary salt installations, and Beam Drop Inhotim.
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