Art

Damien Bénéteau

Kinetic Design

Trained in photography, Damien Bénéteau transposes the process of capturing light into sculpture. In his works the juxtaposition of objects, movement and light serves to produce two types of sculpture, molding the ﬁeld of vision as well as his materials.

Visual effects

Rather than illusions

Seeking visual effects rather than illusions, Damien Bénéteau employs his own sculptural vocabulary, made of gaps, shadows, ellipses and halos, metamorphosing the way the spectator looks at his works.

Sculpting light enables Damien Bénéteau to reveal hidden corners within spaces, to invert contrasts to bring new forms to life, add tints and colour gradients, or redeﬁne reliefs and depths. The dark, matt black surface contrasts with the dense light of the white LEDs, producing retinal persistence and aura effects. Damien Bénéteau thereby performs the double operation, both revealing and ﬁxing these intangible impressions which largely determine an object's visibility.

Hypnotic

Repetition

The hypnotic repetition and continuous play of 'revealed then hidden' lull spectators into a state of contemplation, leading them to meditate on the notion of time. By mimicking such magical objects as celestial bodies, pendulums and metronomes, these mobiles in perpetual motion subtly organise a passage from the historical present, suspended during the encounter with the work, to the present of astronomical time, evocative of the macrocosm.

Damien Bénéteau

Gallery

Collection

'Variation 120' is a kinetic sculpture created by the artist Damien Bénéteau.

The Variations series is based on the movement of a pendulum, whose rhythm is determined by the speciﬁc weight of each mass. An interdisciplinary theme, shared among mathematics, astronomy, biology and music, variation implies a gap, a way of being different which an animated sculpture can adopt to highlight its singularity. Furtively evoking the contours of a loudspeaker, a musical note or a metronome, these sculptures punctuate the music of time which ticks on and the echo of the beat of life. A slight push on the upper weight will activate the pendulum for a few minutes.

A photographer by training, Bénéteau creates art dedicated to light, capturing it in a way that renders it nearly tangible.

Limited edition of 100 pieces