olafur eliasson: kinetic drawing machine for station to station

in an artful documentation of movement and travel, olafur eliasson‘s kinetic device autonomously sketches a series of drawings as it travels by train. ‘connecting cross country with a line’ is part of doug aitken’s ongoing project ‘station to station’ — a collaborative cultural creation currently journeying from the atlantic ocean to the pacific coast, making creative ‘pit-stops’ in various cities along the way.

eliasson’s contribution to aitken’s project is a dynamic drawing machine installed in the one of the train cars, where it calls on the locomotive motion to move an ink ball along the surface of a white sheet of round paper. as the black-pigmented sphere slides, bounces and rolls across the layer of paper, it traces the topography it encounters. the result is visual representation of the cities and towns it traverses. since the train has taken off, three drawings have been realized, with a total of 20 anticipated throughout the course of the cross-country trip. when the creative campaign concludes, the machine will return to berlin, where eliasson will frame each composition and author a poem to accompany them.

an installation view of the kinetic drawing machine
image courtesy of station to station

an ink ball moves along the surface of a white sheet of round paper
image courtesy studio olafur eliasson 

as the black-pigmented sphere slides, bounces and rolls across the layer of paper, it traces the geography it encounters
image courtesy of station to station 

eliasson will frame each composition and author a poem to accompany them
image courtesy of station to station