Bolt 2012 - A kinetic sculpture

Bolt plays with the interchangeability between the human and the mechanical and explores our perception of movement. When dropped from above, the hanging athlete’s legs leap into unpredictable life and defy Euclidean theory.
Bolt is a surprising object, an outlier and object of wonder. In this way it mimics its eponymous inspiration, Usain Bolt. When Bolt is in motion, it recalls the sequential photography of Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge, photography that changed our understanding of how we perceive motion. Another strong influence on the artwork was Marcel Duchamp’s 1913-14 work; Three Standard Stoppages. Duchamp regarded this piece of ‘canned chance’ where a 3 metre-long threads fall one metre to create a new distorted shape for 3 rulers as his most important work: