[2025] Collaborator: Tobias Klein
Kunst.Werk.Stein.Schlag (Art.Work.Stone.Hit) is a kinetic artwork combining found Chinese Scholar rocks with custom-made electromechanical devices. It transforms traditional Gongshi scholar’s stones—Taihu rocks shaped by water over millennia—from contemplative objects into activated bodies, producing industrial mining sounds that break cultural silence. Strapped with machining belts and held by 3D-printed armatures, the object traverse from inanimate geological formations to animate characters, exploring morphology as an ongoing dialogue between geological time, cultural memory, and technological intervention. The work invites recontextualization, exposing how interpretive frameworks decode materiality and temporality across cultures.
Central to this work are Gongshi, or scholar’s stones—objects with profound significance in Chinese cultural history. The rocks used are Taihu stones, one of the four classical Chinese scholar rocks. Submerged in water for years, their porous material is slowly washed away and sculped by natural forces, creating intricate holes and forms. These geological formations serve as objects of contemplation and reflection, portals into deep time itself. In Chinese cultural context, their value lies not in artifice but in geological authenticity, elevated to objects of philosophical contemplation.
In Kunst.Werk.Stein.Schlag (KWSS), miniature electronic thumpers continue the work of natural erosion, bringing this labour into the exhibition space. In this sense, these technological artifacts seem to amplify the rock latent narrative; however, they also appear as agressors, abiding by the impatient rules of technological ubris as they kick the rocks producing a sound reminiscent of industrial mining. The sounds they produce resonate throughout the exhibition space, creating the impression of being at the heart of a construction site or a shared atelier with invisible busy sculptors.
Exhibition history
- MORPHOLOGY, Peter Nelson & Tobias Klein (in collaboration with Alvaro Cassinelli), HanartTZ Gallery, 13 Dec – 24 Jan, 2026. Alvaro Cassinelli: concept, custom electromechanics, software interaction / Tobias Klein: concept, Taihu rocks, 3d stainless steel printed supports and wood resonant box.
Technical Details
The installation uses custom-made electromechanical devices—battery-operated thumpers or “chisels” strapped onto the rocks that function independently. Each device contains an ATTiny85 microcontroller that triggers a push-pull solenoid at random intervals. This creates long periods of silence punctuated by intermittent thumping reminiscent of human-operated hammers or chiselling tools. The metallic plunger strikes the rock’s surface directly, producing a distinct metallic sound, while the current spike of the solenoid flyback produces a visible spark. Over time, this constant hitting carves a small indentation and produces dust that deposits at the base, testament of the rock’s permanent transformation.
During idle periods, the device enters deep sleep mode, making it energy-efficient and capable of operating continuously for about eight hours on a small 250mAh Li-Po battery. An infrared remote control allows calibration of the hitting parameters (kicking intervals, duration of the hit, etc.)—proving very useful when placing the devices and tuning their acoustic response in a delicate process that tried to capture the sculptor’s sensibility programmatically.
The electronic circuitry (designed using Eagle and fabricated by Seeedstudio Fusion) is encapsulated in a glass tube that deliberately exposes all the discrete components. These tubes attach and detach magnetically to a fixed metallic three-legged support reminiscent of a small rocket “mining” an alien rock, or a syringe gun injecting foreign material into the passive substrate.
Software and environmental interaction
The embedded software was written in C++ [github] with custom, simplified libraries for decoding infrared commands and to maximally exploit the low-power modes available on the ATTiny85. Parameters set through the remote control are saved in EEPROM memory and retrieved each time the device is switched on. We explored and prototyped several interaction behaviours: independent action triggered by environmental sensors (local disturbances of electrostatic fields produced by the audience’s presence, invisibly extending the rock’s physical body and making the public directly responsible for triggering the “carving” process), using the rocks as ticking clocks, or as musical instruments. We investigated electret microphones that would listen to kicks produced by neighbouring thumpers and react with a delay. Ultimately, we settled on the simplest mode of operation: independent, random kicks finely tuned to resemble the chaotic sound of human-operated tools.
