Len Lye’s film Particles in Space (1980) explores the direct animation methods used in Free Radicals. The resulting dots and dashes flash and race across screen with the kind of high-energy excitement that is a hallmark of the artist’s work. The Len Lye Foundation notes that the artist “made several versions of the film in the 1960s but almost completely remade it in 1979 with the assistance of Steve Jones and Paul Barnes. Synchronized to drum music from the Bahamas and from Nigeria, the film begins and ends with sounds of Lye’s steel kinetic sculptures (another area of art in which he was a pioneer).” Lye, who passed away in 1980 (the year Particles in Space was released), left a legacy affirming the generative potential of merging art and science, and his works continue to influence contemporary art and film.
Len Lye
Born in 1901 in New Zealand, Len Lye lived in Australia and England before relocating to the United States in 1944. Fascinated with motion dynamics, he created pioneering films such as A Colour Box (1935) and Free Radicals (1958) by painting and scratching directly onto film strips to animate abstract patterns of color and light. This technique set a new precedent in avant-garde cinema. From around 1960 onward, his exploration of movement extended beyond filmmaking to include kinetic sculpture; works like Bell Wand (1965) and the posthumously erected Wind Wand (1996), made of flexible fiberglass, are designed to vibrate and bend as external forces act on them.
Lye, who passed away in 1980 (the year Particles in Space was released), left a legacy affirming the generative potential of merging art and science, and his works continue to influence contemporary art and film.