The Kinetic Art Gallery of the Harvenstall Art Museum is where visitors can participate in the creation of art.  It is a variation on performance art.

Take for instance falling chips.  Each black chip is five centimeters long by two centimeters wide by five millimeters thick or roughly the size of a domino.  There are 10,000 chips located on a stage that measures 30 meters long by 15 meters wide.  The stage magnetically arranges the chips according to how an “artist” wants them arranged when he makes his design on a video screen that measures two meters wide by one meter high.  He can also change the elevation of sections of the stage so that the falling chips can climb or fall to reach the next chips. 

When the chips are standing up, the magnetic stage becomes just a stage and the artist knocks down the first chip.  An overhead camera shows the artist and other onlookers what happens when the chips fall.  It takes some minutes for all the chips to fall.  But it is often worth the wait.  Sometimes the chips spell out words and other times they make pictures after they fall.  Sometimes they just fall and that’s good enough for some artists. 

There is also people bowling.  A synthetic is rolled down a bowling lane that is slightly sloped down so that the synthetic will gain speed.  At the end are ten synthetics that are arranged like bowling pins.  You try to knock down as many as you can.  The synthetic walks back to the top of the lane to be rolled toward the remaining synthetics that are standing if any are standing.  It doesn’t seem so cruel since no living beings are caused to fall. 

Pendulum art is something that can be done with one person and a synthetic or a bunch of people.  There are giant pendulums the size of beach balls that swing north and south or east and west.  They are magnetically attached to posts that drop down when the magnets are released so that they can swing freely.  Or after they are released, if a person pulls the pendulum back further or shoves it harder or in various directions, the pendulum can swing differently.  A pendulum or more than one is released to swing perpendicular to the one the person releases.