Zdeněk Pešánek

Born 1896. Died 1965. Sculptor, architect and kinetic artist.

Kinetic artist. Designed "colour piano", which added lighting effects to the music (1000 light bulbs with 238 tones of colour; the light patterns or 'score' corresponded to the perforated rolls of the player-piano and were replaceable), built by Petrof company (1928), exhibited in the Czechoslovak pavilion for the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1937).

Wrote about electronic machines fulfilling miracles in his book Kinetismus (1940). Was able to produce a light-kinetic sculptural painting, where the keys could also trigger the scenic means of the painting and the colour changes within the illuminated embossment work, in dynamic interplay with a mechanical spectrophone (reflector play). Real instrument, technically well executed and managed by Erwin Schulhoff.

Pesanek designed light and kinetic sculptures for architectural settings from department stores to the electricity generating housings in CS in the 1920s and 1930s.

Other works:

• One Hundred Years of Electricity, for Zenger's transformer station in Prague-Klárov, 1932-36 [1]
• Monument to the Aviators, on which he worked from 1925 through the 1930s

Articles

• Jana Matulová, "Barevná hudba. Bakalářská diplomová práce", Brno, 2008 [2]
• Zdeněk Pešánek, "Bildende Kunst vom Futurismus zur Farben- und Formkinetik (Mit Vorfuehrung eines Farbe-Ton-Klaviers)", in: Georg Anschutz (ed.), Farbe-Ton-Forschungen, Vol. 1, Hamburg: Meissner, 1931, pp. 193-204
• Mahulena Nešlehová, "Impulses of Futurism and Czech Art", International futurism in arts and literature; Berlin; New York; Walter de Gruyter, 2000. [3]
• Jiri Zemánek: "Zdenek Pešánek", in: Lanterna magika: New technologies in Czech art of the 20th century, Praha: KANT, 2002. [4]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calypsospots/sets/72157616084842684/