A-One of Kind Conversation with Todd Dunning
Photo credit: Karine Dunning
Todd Dunning is a pioneering American kinetic sculptor based in San Francisco, California. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in artistic spaces such as Galerie Youn, Gray Contemporary, International Art Museum of America, and elsewhere. I had the pleasure and honor of asking Todd about why creating art is compelling to him, what were some of the best reactions he has had to his artwork, and how he keeps his art a unique kind of experience.
UZOMAH: What about making and creating art is so compelling to you?
TODD: I wanted to create beings that are made of art. Like cells in a body. They’re silent, don’t have moving parts, and think about what they want to do next. Their art is what they do, not what the artist does.
My vision started by being real about my own limitations and capabilities: I don’t have the skills of traditional painters and sculptors. I needed what Star Trekkies call a “Kobayashi Maru”; a total reset of the playing field. We see artists who are experts in a medium and we know mere mortals can’t follow them, which leaves other artists with the choice of chucking the traditional media and creating a new medium that they can contribute within.
I spent years lying awake at night trying to conjure this up. Conventional kinetics have been done over and over; mechanical themes with cranks and gears etc - though I love that stuff. So what does that leave? Nothing came to mind, which hinted that there was a vacuum to be filled. I had no idea what such a body of work would look like or what it would do; a cool creative opportunity.
Conventional kinetics also don’t explore organic movement, a mostly unexplored area. So a long journey started to engineer creatures that would move and do their own thing yet not be overtly mechanical. Self-contained so they could be moved easily from place to place for viewers to enjoy.
So the compelling part for me now is to follow where this new medium goes, and it just keeps getting better and more interesting.
“Roto 7”, 2020, Hanging, 46x6x6, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: Do you ever worry about anyone touching your installations?
T: Fortunately they’re really tough, though they don’t look like it. After all the thousands of mechanical kinks that have appeared - and still come up - it turned out that extremely lightweight solves many problems including durability, reliability, and ease of motion. To make them light requires engineering more like an aircraft than a sculpture. Years ago I literally started with wood and cables - and today it is carbon fiber, nylon, titanium, stainless steel, and artificial muscles. Even the wiring is silicone-jacketed for durability.
You can drop them on the ground, bend them, and beat them with a stick - well, maybe popsicle sticks.
“Roto 13” , 2021, Wall mounted 36X30x6, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: What is the best reaction you have had after someone has seen your exhibit for the first time?
T: Jaws dropping. Surprised reactions are the reward for so many long nights getting this figured out. Seeing something move that doesn’t normally move is weird enough but there is also a haunting, intelligent feel to the movement. They’re totally self-contained so it looks like some kind of animal hanging there doing stuff; no motors or wires. It’s great to see my artistic goal for them be validated, and that just came about from spending lots and lots of time.
“Roto 14”, 2021, Wall mounted, 60x32x2, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: How different and even more impactful would art be if artists focused on removing themselves from the art and letting the art create and manifest the visual?
T: It’s a difficult task, that’s for sure…We’ll see in the coming years. It’s hard to do without robotics and there are some large-scale works emerging lately using industrial robots, drawing machines, and the like. But we all know tech isn’t always attractive in the art world and looks artificial. Tech looks like cheating, which belies the huge amount of work needed to make it work.
What surprised me so much was discovering their performance aspect. It’s like watching fish in an aquarium; they are doing this and that here and there, and then resting. Then figuring out what to do next. Always different and I’m as surprised as anyone else. What makes it fun is observing what they do and then watching what people do.
“Roto 18”, 2021, Hanging, 36x30x6, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: What is the most important part of the creative process for you?
T: The most important - and most fun - part is watching them come alive for the first time. I do a final check, make sure connections are okay, cross my fingers and then slowly flip the switch. The individual brains in different sections slowly decide what they want to do. Different limbs and ends start to notice each other. The decision tree of whether a section should move or not starts moving through the whole piece and suddenly you have an organism that moves like no other. I really relish this moment because the next part is the nuts and bolts work of checking that everything is okay, instead of enjoying the movements of the new organism.
Much different from other artists I spend countless hours in behind-the-scenes engineering, creating components that allow the pieces to do their own thing. The final assembly of the pieces is pretty quick, but then it took weeks or months to get the components to the point where they are now creative Lego blocks to be made into living beings that are creatively new and different.
“Roto 19”, 2021, Wall mounted, 68x32x6, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: What are the primary colors you find you use the most and why?
T: Excellent question that relates to the vision. I’d always wanted the movement - not the form - to be the focus. Color is just the icing on the cake here and I let collectors choose colors that speak to them. I have strong feelings about everything besides the color.
“Roto 16”, 2021, Hanging, 120x120x36, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: How do you use dielectric elastomers, titanium, carbon fiber, and 3D printed internals to create a life-like experience?
T: It’s taken years of full-time work to engineering a piece that can be 25 feet long to weigh only a couple pounds, with several sections that move a few feet without noise or moving parts. I didn’t know the first thing about any of this when I started, but the strong vision really motivated me to keep learning and trying it. I spend all my right-brain time in engineering so that when it’s time to put one together the left brain can go crazy on the creative vision.
The muscles are laboratory devices called dielectric elastomers, a fancy name for a plastic that contracts when you give it some volts…The same way your muscles contract when your brain tells them to. They’re used on satellites to unfold their solar panels and move them towards the sun.
Each sculpture has a number of simple brains and muscle groups that communicate to each other. They each make their own decision about what to do and when to do it. Sometimes I’ll think something is wrong with a piece but then it starts going again and all I can conclude is that it wanted to take a short break.
“Roto 6”, 2020, Hanging, 96x48x10, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: How do you keep your art unique and a one-of-a-kind experience?
T: My worst nightmare is for someone to say the work reminds them of another artist. To me, that would mean I’ve failed to contribute something new to art.
It was absolutely worth it to take a couple of extra years in planning the new medium and body of work - instead of practicing the technique on regular old standard art. But it is certainly easier to do the latter and go with the flow and make art that nobody will remember after leaving the exhibit.
We all know there are artists that want to shock to stand out, especially in contemporary art. However, even that has been done a thousand times over. Maybe it’s just me but I felt my time and effort were wasted if the work was just another shocking or provocative eye-roller. So after getting the medium figured out - probably the first couple of years - I decided to wait to really launch a career showing to the public until it was all fully mature with all the details sorted out.
A side benefit is that the work gets attention. I don’t have a standout CV or art degree, but nobody seems to care because of the extra time taken to create different work.
“Roto 17”, 2021, 50x32x6, wall mounted, Carbon fiber, titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, microprocessors, nylon.
U: What do you tell a young art student who wants to be a kinetic sculptor?
T: It depends on how fast they want their career to advance. Kinetic art is still in its infancy after being brought to the forefront by Tinguely among others. The surface has only been scratched. Today there is a lot of kinetic art that falls into the “craft” category such as automata and mobiles. David C. Roy is an example of that arts/crafts crossover.
If you want to fast-forward your career, make work that is different and highly thought through. Doors seem to open for me because of this; I don’t have to reach out.
U: How has the increase of virtual exhibits changed how you display your artwork?
Fortunately, video is widespread - or else my work would be impossible to show on the web. Still, photos don’t do it but fortunately, everybody can check out videos.
For more information about Todd’s art please visit his site. Also, you can follow Todd on Instagram.
