Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 5: Artist-Programmer Era (1970s)

1971

Tsai Wen-Ying, Umbrella

Artwork

A detail of Wen-Ying Tsai's Umbrella (1971) installed at Tate Modern, looking up at the central crown from which thirteen fine stainless-steel rods radiate, each weighted at its tip.
A detail of Wen-Ying Tsai's Umbrella (1971) installed at Tate Modern, looking up at the central crown from which thirteen fine stainless-steel rods radiate, each weighted at its tip. The central crown of Umbrella, 1971, by Wen-Ying Tsai. Courtesy Tsai Art and Science Foundation. Photo: © Tate, London 2016.

Tsai Wen-Ying was important artist in the transition from cybernetic and lumino-kinetic to electronic art. Tsai began creating cybernetic sculptures composed of vibrating rods like Umbrella in 1966. The rotating rods would flash with light, creating illusions of a stationary object as well as chaotic dynamic energy.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.

Sources

People

Tsai Wen-Ying

Movements

Lumino-Kinetic Art

Filed under

Ideas
light art, Lumino-Kinetic Art
Technologies
cybernetics, kinetic art, kinetic sculpture
People
Tsai Wen-Ying
Works
Electronic Art, Umbrella

Echoes across time

Le Random editorials

Explore all Le Random editorials and artist interviews

Le Random podcast