PATRICK O’SHEA


Researcher and Artist









Hydroelectric Modeling

2018-2020


Practice based research: process of developing kinetic models combing analogical and digital components. 

The videos below represent the stages of development and instrumentation.
Ongoing project towards next stage.



Hydrorefractor 2019, shown as part of ATS 50th in Chicago. Computer cooling propelled mechanism creating diffracting light patterns & kinetic movement of H20 atomic structures phase shifting. 



River mobile (2017) propelled by the river and outputting friction of movement via audio amplification. 

2018. Prototype of mechanisms seen in Hydrorefractor (above). Article about process found in FNews Magazine.

                2018. Beginning stages of linkage.





“The relationship of humans with nature is indeed a funny one — funny, at least, for someone like me whose fate is not intricately bound up with the Earth’s. I cannot think about the lovely little art-machines of Patrick O’Shea (MFA Art and Technology, 2020) without thinking of their opposite forms: the pumping arm of an oil drilling rig at work, for example, or any other machine that contains or devours any given natural resource. O’Shea’s machines meet the natural on the meekest and most lyrical of terms. In one, a single heart-shaped leaf — fresh-picked, presumably — trawls around in a circle, pulled by a rotating arm at the center of a round dish of water. Would that this foolish species operated with this level of care on its once-green planet!” -Leah Gallant, Fnews Magazine 2018


 
Marine Magnetism. 2018
Leaf floating on water. Inspired by the relationship between the tides, magnetic field, and rising heat.

Example seen here, from NASA Visualization Explorer