Margot's Cat, kinetic sculpture by Arthur Ganson

I was recently reminded by a reader of one of my favorite kinetic sculptures by Arthur Ganson. Shown in the video above is his piece Margot's Cat.

From the YouTube video description:

This machine was inspired by watching a randomly shaped object bouncing off the surface of a slow moving, reciprocating and irregularly shaped piston head on the moon. Of course anything is possible in the virtual world of the computer.

The doll house chair seems to be the perfect object to bounce nearly weightlessly over the unsuspecting cat. In this machine, the chair is passive and all motion is due to interference by the cat. The large disk at the back serves to both counterbalance the arm and give more mass to the chair itself. The motion of the chair is complex and will never repeat.

Margot Clark was my wonderful and inspiring art history teacher at the University of New Hampshire. When she passed away she left a houseful of cats.

See more kinetic sculptures by Arthur Ganson on his web site.

[ Thanks Christoph! ]

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