Len Lye

Len Lye

Len Lye is a New Zealander, born in Christchirch. His earliest works were inspired by experimenting with movement in art but have unfortunately have been lost. Since then, Lye worked a lot with film.

His first generally broadcasted piece of film called 'A Colour Box' was an advertisement for GBO and features experimental lines and blocks of colour painted onto the film, moving in time with soundtrack by Don Baretto. He was the first to significantly pioneer this technique although experiments had been made in the past.

This technique gives the impression of constant movement on and off screen.

Shot from 'A Colour Box'

My favourite short film is 'Full Fathoms Five' which Len created by scratching the words of this shakespeare quote onto the film strip itself.

During the 50's he turned from film making to what we now call 'kinetic sculpture'. Some of these were like continuations of his film works such 'Free Radicals'. The soundtrack is partly comprised of sounds from his kinetic sculpture.

Free Radicals

Throughout all his work you can see his ideas of light, life force and movement coming through... he called this 'total artwork'.

Grass

This example of kinetic sculpture is made of stainless steel blades in wood and moving with the aid of a motor.