All About Yves: A Look in Darwin's Kitchen

by Kristin Roseman

Yves Klein Jr. is tuning up his brain. . .that is, the brain of his new interactive art piece, Octofungi. "I've been working on this forever," he says. "I call it Octofungi, octo for eight legs and fungi because it looks like a mushroom." Octofungi is one of the pieces Yves Klein Jr. will display in a show for CRASHarts, a non-profit, experimental arts project, held at the ICEHOUSE in downtown Phoenix, January 5,1996.

Klein's work is the marriage of art and science. His pieces are interactive; they move on their own according to the information they receive from the brain of the piece. Octofungi is a plastic piece that resembles something between a flower and an alien from the movie, Predator. One moment the piece is still, an objet d'art, the next it is springing to life like a flower opening for the first time. But how does it work?

"Sensors will detect motion and the brain will make decisions about how it is going to react according to what you do. It's a learning process; in essence the piece will be trained by the user, so the effects may differ from one piece to another," says Klein, showing off his detailed work. "One thing that is interesting, you don't see any motors." Exactly, Octofungi is held together by a series of springs and pulleys, centered around a human-looking plastic spinal cord, or core, that is held together with a twist and lock mechanism. O.K., here's where a degree from MIT might come in handy: two micro-processors are dedicated to driving Octofungi's eight legs, knowing exactly what their position should be, and sending feedback to the brain asking for more power to correct their position. Two other micro-processors are on the receiving end of this data, sending it to the neural network, or brain. This brain then takes the data, decides what action to take, and then sends that message to the driver which moves the legs. (Whew!) "So that's how we build this thing," Klein says in his part mad scientist laboratory, part Santa's workshop studio.

As we walk past miles of wire, computers, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers, Yves Klein Jr. confesses that he has always gone back and forth between art and science. "For me there is really no difference between the two, because it is all about being curious about the world. For instance, this piece is a discovery; there are a lot of things I am discovering just in making it." Yves Klein Jr. is curious indeed. After studying architecture and computer science in his native France, he then attended A.S.U., concentrating on both sculpture and computer science. Creation and discovery run in the family, as his father, Yves Klein Sr. was renowned in the art world. The influential French artistic iconoclast and innovator created the signature color 'Yves Klein Blue," in which nude models were covered in paint, and then imprinted themselves on canvas. His 1958 exhibition of the bare walls of a Paris gallery rejected every painterly convention. Yves Klein Jr. may have some big shoes to fill, but with Octofungi, those shoes are filling up fast. Standing in his kitchen, Klein has the serenity of a Zen master; he talks of generalism, that everyone should have knowledge of several subjects, and with that knowledge we will realize that the world is interconnected. In the future, Klein feels to survive, we must learn to adapt to many different trades and occupations, and that the successful will be those few who possess a mastery of several subjects. If this is true, then Yves Klein Jr. is ahead of the game.

CRASHarts is located in the ICEHOUSE in downtown Phoenix [Arizona].
429 W. Jackson Street 85003
Tel. 256-6333,
Director: Helen Hestenes

article from "Java Cafe Monthly," January 1996