Metal Trees in Motion

Photographed in March of 2012 in San Diego, California, United States. The video was taken at ground level on the lawn adjacent to the San Diego Convention Center in downtown San Diego. The subject of the video is a metal sculpture called Wind Palms. Erected in 2008, this sculpture is a set of three metallic 'trees' with rotating semicircular tops. The builder was Ned Kahn, an artist who has similar metal artwork in many cities around the world. For this outdoor setup in San Diego, hundreds of metallic strips dangle from the semicircles atop the trees. When blown by the wind, the tree-tops swivel about their individual axes (metallic tree trunks, if you will). The overall effect vaguely resembles the motion of three palm trees flexing back and forth in the wind. But in this case, the metal trees' tops are what move back and forth. Once each top rotates horizontally around 180 degrees, it hits its built-in limit, and then it rotates 180 degrees backward again. When the wind is calm, the tree-tops don't rotate at all.