Tech, Kinetic and Bio Art

Eye of Courage

Eye of Courage is a hand crank operated automaton sculpture, involving a soft flower mechanism that pulses with each crank of its shaft. The stand that holds the pivoting points of the shaft is 3D printed with FDM-based PLA plastic. To allow the flower to pulse, a thread tugs at the flower's base through an opening below the flower. Since the petals are partially rested on the cup-like structure that holds the flower, tugging the flower at the base causes the petals to also close in, synchronising with the tugging movement. The head bust is sculpted from air dry clay, primed with coats of expressionist acrylic paint. The entire sculpture is then glued onto an MDF base.

Motorised Kinetic Floral Wristband

Having a fascination with Biomimicry— and that of simulating biological systems with mechanical ones, my teenage years became preoccupied with the vision of miniaturising motorised natural sculptures to be sufficiently mass-produceable. 

As a rough proof-of-concept preceding any formal prototype, I created this wearable of a pulsing plastic-paper flower, tugged at periodically by a DC miniaturised gear box motor. The springiness of the plastic holding the core of the flower naturally resets back the petals to a default opened position, whereas the thread that clings to the petals make the petals retract inwards to closure, upon being tugged at.

I recall doodling down this concept briefly—of 'Time' being an unforgiving metaphysical guillotine that cleared the old for the new—pictured as a large clock slicing off an enslaved figure's head, in my early teenage years.

As a young adult in 2026, I converted this former sketch into the current kinetic assemblage documented here.

The Guillotine of Time is constituted of a pen knife blade glued onto the second-hand of the clock, swiveling back and forth towards the head of a toy doll, simulating the severing motion on the figure.

Initially, no motion was produced on the second hand, as it halted indefinitely upon being obstructed by the head of the doll. What I did was to create a slight elevation beneath the structure of the clock. This is such that as the blade swings towards the doll's head, gravity dragged the second-hand back down from the weight of the blade, spasmodically returning back up again. This naturally generates an up-and-down alternating swinging motion of the blade on the clock's second-hand, simulated without programming, but through analogue mechanics and chance.

Limits of Reason: A Biological Artwork made with Living Ants

As an ant-keeper who can identify almost all generic native ant species out in Singapore, Limits of Reason synthesises both my knowledge in basic myrmecology (the study of ants) and my skills in Art. 

The artwork is a meta-commentary: a manifestation of art that is unconscious of its own beauty.

It was created with modular, detachable tubes that can be mounted on the canvas with adjustable bolt and nut tighteners, allowing for the tubings to be replaced in any instance of degradation/a necessity for expansion.

Ionic Wind Set-up: Generating moving air with high voltage

Ionic wind is a phenomenon where winds are generated from the collision of high-speed charged particles from a high voltage source against air particles.

As a part of my electronics projects, I made used of an off-the-shelf high-voltage generator, a 1.5V AA battery, and some metallic structures, forming an ionic wind generator set-up in 2024. To get the set-up working, I supplied power to the high voltage generator module with the battery. With that, the other two exposed ends of the high voltage generator made it an open circuit. The final touch was making use of this open circuit: connecting one terminal of it to a SHARP iron nail and the other terminal to a BLUNT steel washer(contrast is necessary).

A sharp end of one the open circuit accumulates a lot of charged particles(the iron nail), which accelerates towards the lower concentration of electric charge at the opposite terminal(the blunt washer), smashing into the pockets of air in the distances in-between. 

I highly suspect that the high voltage generator is actually a Cockroft-Walton generator, which acts like a ratchet/one-way pump of charges to fill itself up. Imagine a continually emotionally triggered person bottling themselves up with so much rage until they can't help but give you a "high-voltage slap"!

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