In spite of a youthful fascination with Futurism, Lye was less interested in the mechanical motion of the modern world than in the raw kinetics of nature.
In a 1975 essay entitled “The Art That Moves,” Lye summarized his interest in motion:

“I, myself, eventually came to look at the way things moved mainly to try to feel movement, and only feel it. This is what dancers do; but instead, I wanted to put the feeling of a figure of motion outside of myself to see what I’d got.”