Red Hook: Power Plant
Kim Holleman
A kinetic sculpture in the shape of a giant tree, featuring beautiful Archimedes spirals -generators to power up electronics, laptops, cellphones lights and more.
Power Plant is a hybrid kinetic sculpture and power generator. Using basic turbine technology, combined with a well grounded steel sculpture shaped like a tree, its possible to combine the hypnotic and elegant beauty of turning Archimedes spirals with generators.
Generators can charge cell phones, laptops, batteries, lamps and more in times of emergencies-and for everyday use. This piece is structural and moveable, able to move in and out of situations as needed, and be beautiful, standing perfectly still.
Turbine technology is a problem already solved, but the designs of the bodies of wind turbines themselves leave much to be desired. Dull, unimaginative, and harmful to birds who can’t see the scope and the movement of the arms, means traditional wind turbines can harm wildlife. These spirals generate much more energy than traditional blade technology and do not harm wildlife.
Our communities struggle to keep up with the need for easily accessible, more agile, renewable and inexpensive forms of energy, especially in places like Red Hook here power outages, ravages of our changing weather patterns and older infrastructure creates extra challenges.
Power Plant is a work whose soul-purpose is to benefit the community where it lives. This direct ,“energetically charged” connection to the work is meant to perform double duty as function and form. As a kinetic sculpture its beauty rests in the harmony of the golden mean.
The Archimedes spiral is the golden ratio- a form forever evocative of the human body, the movements of the wind, the form of a nautilus shell.
Power Plant is a true art and science hybrid: elegant, functional, a sculptural artwork which serves as a literal power plant in times of need or just to charge your phone after a walk in the park. This point of contact isn’t just for the individual or the needs of a few.
By combining workshops for the community at large which teaches wind turbine tech, we can effect a DIY community at large, and the youth in particular, who can utilize the technology for themselves and their families. In reality, we will be empowering kids to envision anything they can imagine with the new technology they have learned.
With turbine technology as a basis, communities can make wind-farms out of a multitude of items, as long as they spin. This prompt towards creativity+science, and is an empowering way to spark community spirit, as it “plants” a learned technology that can grow into the future of the community over time.
Structurally, Power Plant will strike an elegant pose, even at a dead stand-still.
Welded steel construction holding turbines fits right in with the last of the tin shacks and industrial-era infrastructure Red Hook is famous for!
