Edward Ihnatowicz: SAM, The Senster, The Bandit And Other Works
Alex Zivanovic

Summary

Alex Zivanovic recounts the life and robotic sculptures of Edward Ihnatowicz, a Polish-born artist-engineer who fused sculpture with electronics, hydraulics, and early computing. Zivanovic explains how a childhood book on robots led him to create a website about Ihnatowicz and later to work with the artist's widow, Olga, and archive. He traces Ihnatowicz's path from conventional life sculpture to SAM, a sound-activated mobile shown at the ICA's 1968 'Cybernetic Serendipity' exhibition, and then to The Senster, a large computer-controlled hydraulic sculpture installed at the Eindhoven Evoluon in 1970. The Senster used microphones and Doppler radar to track visitors and responded with eerily lifelike, graceful movement that shaped audience behaviour. Later works include The Bandit, an interactive arm that recorded and replayed human gestures. Zivanovic also reports on the recovery of Ihnatowicz's archive for the Computer Arts Archive and the reconstruction of The Senster at AGH University in Krakow, underscoring the continuing relevance of these works for interactive art.

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