machines and art reichardt

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Machines and ArtAuthor(s): Jasia ReichardtSource: Leonardo, Vol. 20, No. 4, 20th Anniversary Special Issue: Art of the Future: TheFuture of Art (1987), pp. 367-372Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1578534

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Machines a n d A r tJasiaReichardt

Abstract-Since there is no cure for progress, we may assume that machines will play anincreasingly significant role in every area of our lives. Artistshave celebrated machinessincethey came into existence, first by depictingthem and morerecently by usingthemas tools andassistants.What willhappenwhenmachinesmaketheirown art?Will werecognise t and willweaccept it?

In one version of SentimentalEducation,Flaubert introduces an idea for a heroicpicture which will representthe republic,or progress, or civilisation, or all three. Itwill depict the figure of Christsurmount-ing a locomotive which drives over avirgin forest; here the machine will sweepthrough the world under the auspices ofthe highest authority. This image of themachine as an unstoppable force isprophetic of our contemporary world.Today, its status and influence, its surgethrough the 'virgin forest', have becomegauges of our society's progress. Re-cognition of the machine's importance isdemonstrated in the existence of anexpanding generation gap (what theyoung know and the old do not); in newtoys (unfamiliar to anyone whose child-hood was more than 10 years ago); inscience fiction; in what and how peoplestudy; in what and how writers writeand,of course, in art.Artists have contributed significantlyto the current image and meaning of themachine and have even anticipated someof its developments. Their approaches tothe subject have rangedfrom reactionarydistaste, to empathetic ingenuity, toromantic and celebratory bravado. Themachine's role as a metaphor for labourhas been largely ignored by artists.Rather, it has become a metaphorfor theworld itself and one that has floweredthrough a greater variety of interpreta-tions than in any other field of ourculture. The Futurists' rapturous en-dorsement of the machine is part ofhistory. Among other celebrated char-acterisations the machine has appearedasa nostalgic object, as an instrument oferotic longing and as an emblem ofhuman transgressions.In the world of the imagination, theJasia Reichardt (writer), 12 Belsize Park Gardens,London NW3 4LD, U.K.Received 15 September 1986.

? 1987 ISASTPergamon Journals Ltd.Printed in Great Britain.0024-094X/87 $3.00+0.00

A QUIET LUNCH AT HOME.(A) Contact with Outer Wori(l.

O)ther Planets.Futulre.Women.

(H) Communication withl U.S.A. andIndia.NeNws.A i r Transport.Submarine Transport.I lternational Parliamenet.Law ('ouirts.

(c) Wireless Broadcast Liglit Screens.Fig. 1. A.M. Low, A Quiet Lunchat Home, 1925. Thisroomof the future was devisedby the Englishinventor andwriter A.M. Low. Presumably he food is in liquidform since the manin the armchair ssuckingat a pipe comingout of the wall.The roomcontainseverything hat the leisured classes of thefuturemight be expected to require:a large TVscreen and the means of contactingthe outer worldincludingotherplanets,the internationalparliamentand,somewhatsurprisingly,women.Thegaragecontainsa machine hatis somethingbetweenahelicopterand a submarine.Note that there s noart inthis room.machine can and often does remain 'an ture, it has been everything from a robotelusive, half-defined presence. In litera- to a shapeless thing with fictitious

LEONARDO, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 367-372, 1987


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functions. Pataphysical machines [1]would be difficult to reconstruct sincenobody knows precisely how they dowhat they do, or what that is anyway. Thecomparativelyconcreteform of machinesin art does not mean that they have beenany more conventional, predictable orcomprehensible. Take, for example,Francis Picabia'sAmorousParade (1917)or Girl Born without a Mother (c. 1916-1918). Referring to Picabia, Paul B.Haviland wrote in 1915:

Man made the machine in his ownimage.Shehas limbswhichact; ungswhich breathe; a heart which beats; anervous system through which runselectricity. The phonograph is theimage of his voice; the camera theimage of his eye. The machine is his'daughter without a mother' [2].Picabia himself wrote that very year:

The machine has become more than amereadjunct of life. It is reallya part ofhuman life ... perhapsthe verysoul. Inseeking forms through which tointerpret ideas or by which to exposehuman characteristics I have come atlength upon the form which appearsmost brilliantlyplasticand fraughtwithsymbolism. I have enlisted themachinery of the modern world, andintroduced it into my studio [3].

Others transformed the machine moreradically. There are, after all, no lawsgoverning the machine in art, no logic.Who is to say what the machine shouldbe?Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass: TheBride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,Even (1915-23) was a thoroughlyorganised affair, a machine-cum-meta-phor for efficiently controlled passion.With Max Ernst the machine was givenvisibly, rather than functionally, humanattributes-she became a beautiful andmysterious android. She contained all theinsignia of machineessence(typical of thenineteenth rather than the twentiethcentury): cogs and wheels, pendula,pistons, motors, electrical valves. In themajority of images the machine re-presented or symbolised a human being,but in the works of George Grosz andJohn Heartfield it stood for power, forthe blind force of dictatorship. Otherworks, like those of Cesar DomelaNieuwenhuis,werecomparedto machinesbecause, like them, they too could beassembled and taken apart. These hadnothing to do with the machine as ametaphor. The Purists claimed thatpainting is a machine for the transmissionof feelings, but their critics hastened todismiss this heroic claim and to compare

Fig. 2. MartinRiches,Rotater,walkingmachine onstructed f mixedmedia,35 cmhigh,1978.Riches, nEnglishmanivingnBerlin,s a maker f machineshatwalk,paint,playmusic ndprovidebursts fpercussion.heyareelegant ndwittyand ometimesmimichumanmovementsnd ounds.Thiswalkingmachinemoveswithgentle,delicate teps.

their works to machines that have not reckoned with. Its passionate defender,even been started up. Lewis Mumford, believed that "in art itWhatever the point of view, the was to extend and deepen man's originalmachine was discussed fervently by all functions and institutions". He wentthose who recognised it as a force to be on:

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Fig. 3. MartinRiches,Four-PiecePercussionnstallation,mixedmedia,2 m high,1984. Wheninstalled,heassembly ccupies spacemeasuringx 7m-too large oranaverage omesticnterior.

Ourcapacityogo beyond he machinerestsuponourpower o assimilate hemachine.Until we have absorbed helessons of objectivity, mpersonality,neutrality,he essonsof themechanicalrealm, we cannot go further n ourdevelopmentowards he morerichlyorganic,the moreprofoundlyhuman[4].

Mumford felt that the essentialqualitiesof the machine-precision, calculation,flawlessness, simplicity and economy-could add emphasis to human instinctivedesire for order and organisation. In hisview it was Constantin Brancusi, ratherthan either Duchamp or Ernst, who gavethe machine its most brilliant interpreta-tion-in his use of form, method andrespect for materials. To Mumford,

Brancusi's bird had the perfection of apiston.The prototypical, classical, efficient,mechanical machine was contradictednot only by the surrealistsbut also by themajorityof artists who were to follow. Itsrole became twofold. On the one hand, itbecame the means of expression, a heroicpiece of extravaganza in its own right, acelebration of machine-hood. On theother hand, it replaced the artists' tools.In this first instance, as in the work ofJean Tinguely, it provided the form thatencapsulated the very meaning of thework-a machinemadeof machineparts.Today, the emphasistends to bedifferent.The prototypical contemporary machinedoes not lend itself to an imaginativepictorialtreatment because it isultimately

a black box. Today, many artistsworkingwith machines use them not for what theyare but for what they can do. That is whythe most impressive, and the mostnotorious, prototypical art machine ofthe twentieth century (in this first'expressive' category) is still Tinguely'sHomage to New York, which set itselfalight and shook itself to pieces outsidethe Museum of Modern Art in 1960. Itsspectacular demise accompanied byexplosions and fireworks came to anuntimely end within 28 minutes throughthe intervention of the fire brigade.Tinguely called it 'metallic suicide'. Noneof his numerous spectacular machinesmade since then have done anything sodrastic. The emphasis has been more onthe production of machine-paintedpictures or on machines that play ballwith visitors or go through routines ofenergetic movements to the accompani-ment of clanging and whirring-a visualand an acoustic synthesis.All of Tinguely's vivacious machinesare constructed of used metallic parts.They are sharp in every sense of theword. By contrast, Claes Oldenburg'smachines seem lazy and rounded.Tinguely invents new machines, Olden-burg emasculates existing ones. Olden-burg's machines are recognisable asmachines from the real world, but theyconsist of kapok-filled shiny plastic. Softtelephones and soft plugs were followedby a typewriter pie, soft toaster, soft lightswitch, soft fan and soft mixer. All theseare literally soft. Softness is not aprerogative of kapok-some machineshave a soft character. Edward Kienholz'sFriendly Grey Computer(1965) is a softmachine-a spiritually soft machine-even though its exterior belies itsparadoxical character. This computer-asquare box-sits on a rocking-chair baseand answers YES and NO to questionsfrom the public if it is not too tired or if itis not sulking. Rocking the computer isadvised to restore its energy and goodhumour.

Clearly Kienholz does not envisagemachines,especially intelligentmachines,as reliable, predictable or useful, andthere are plenty of precedents for hisattitude. Nor did the makers of the largestand the most famous exhibition robot(the giant Electro) at the New YorkWorld's Fair in 1939 think of the machineas utilitarian. The robot demonstrated anew range of activities available to themodern machine. He smoked, sang,counted and danced. Electro was neverdepicted behind a desk or in a factory. Hebecame an advocate of leisure like thenew automated kitchen in which nobodyhad to do anything, shown at the same

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Fig.4. RichardKriesche,WorldModel, wo ndustrial obotswhich epeatdenticalmovementsnturn,1986. Photo: asiaReichardt) here remanyparallels etween heactionsof therobots ndhuman ctions, ndKriesche's etaphors highly pposite.Fair. This new kitchen was demonstratedin all its automatic detail to theamazement of one and all, but it wasnever manufactured. Its true utilitarianpossibilities were also ultimately limited.The kitchen was a machine in its ownright: like a sculpture by Tinguely, itrepresentedthe fantasy of its makers;butratherthan an objector a sculpture,it wasan environment. Everything in thekitchen was timesaving and fully auto-mated. The idea was that the lady of thehouse need do no more than press a fewbuttons. There were buttons for selectinga recipe, for mixing the ingredients, forcooking them, etc. Preparedfood was notshown, but the sounds issuing fromvarious parts of the room suggested thatsomething was happening. The newsreelcommentary about the kitchen made itclear that no cooking skills werenecessaryand that the hostess, who worea cocktail dress,had no need of an apron.The price of the kitchen included a part-time salary for an engineer, and maybethis, finally, was the reason the kitchenwas never built. Interestingly enough,though there were other comparablefuturistic environments, none includedany art, as if their electronic complexitywas in itself sufficient to stimulate themind and to stir the spirit. In the bestavant-gardetradition, they were new and

experimental works of art in their ownright.In 1925, the English inventor andwriter A.M. Low publisheda book on thefuture [5] in which he included a pictureof a comprehensively furnished room

depictinga manand a child at leisure. Thepicture is entitled A QuietLunchat Home(Fig. 1). The man is sitting in a deeparmchair and sucking at a tube whichissues from a wall. The boy, crouchingonthe floor, wears a helmet and watches a

Fig.5.HaroldCohen's rogram ARONscapable fproducingeries f varied ut elated rawings,reminiscentf Cohen's wnpaintings f theearly1960s.Thisdrawingwasproducedn1983,whenAARONwas 10.(Photo:BeckyCohen)

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Fig. 6. AARON, Black and WhiteDrawing, Indian ink on paper, 22 x 30 in, 1986. (Photo: BeckyCohen)AARON is now 14. His new drawingsare more figurative, like this one. He is still deeplyinfluencedby Harold Cohen,his creator and teacher.

mechanical cat chasing a mechanicalmouse. The room, judging by thepositions of the two humans, is extremelysmall for a futuristic fantasy-no largerthan 10X 15feet, with a television screenoccupying one entire wall. Other objectsin the room include a clock, a gramo-phone, a ventilator and several com-munications panels which not onlyfacilitate contact with the outer world,other planets and international parlia-ment but also with 'the future' and'women'! The interior is decidedlycrowded. Forty years later, pictures inthe popular and architectural pressshowed futuristic environments moresparselyfurnished-one pieceof furnituremight have been a bed as well as a setteeand a light source-and these interiorstended to have curved walls. They toohad consoles with buttons to be pressedfor projecting images, playing music andexternal communications. Unlike in theroom by A.M. Low, there were no toys,no children and nobody over the age of35. Again there was no art and there wereno books, but the difference between1925 and 1965 was that the habitatsdepicted in 1965were designed by artistsand architects and not by builders orinventors. Art and non-art seemed tobecome increasingly nterchangeable,andso there seemed little point in in-corporating art into something that in somany ways already was a work of art.This suggests an interesting problem. Iffuture environments have no art, whereshould futureartbe housed? One assumes

that future art would involve technologiessimilar to those of the environmentsthemselves and would inevitably includemachines.The only obvious conclusion is thatmachine art must be destined for themuseum because futuristic interiors havemade no provision for it. The walkingand music-playing sculptures ofEnglishman Martin Riches will have toconfine themselves eitherto galleriesor tothe stage. The personalities with whichthey are endowed suggest that theybelong to a generation after Tinguely'smachines.They producetheir own music,which they sometimes play together withhuman musicians. For this they requireaspacious and a neutral setting. Theyinclude percussion installations, musicmachines,drawingmachines and walkingmachines. Each category is distinctive.One walking machine, the Rotater, has abody that revolves around its own axisand takes small delicate steps (Fig. 2).Another moves forward like aperson oncrutches and still another like a cater-pillar. The music machines do not alwaysplay melodies. One, for instance, is aclicking machine with ratchet wheelswhich provide 16 rhythmic possiblecombinations. The machine selects sevenat random with each change announcedby a loud click. The final click is followedby a coda.The machine-sculptures by MartinRiches are like performers (Fig. 3);Richard Kriesche's machine-sculptureWorldModelis like a metaphoricalclock.

It consists of two industrial robots whichalternately perform identical tasks (Fig.4). As each robot completes a series ofmovements, it presses a button whichactivates the second robot which, in turnlaunches into the same routine. Thiscontinuesindefinitely.WorldModel efersto two things. First, theactivity iswithoutvisiblepurpose.Second, Kriescheremindsus through the repetitive actions of therobots that life is made up of the samerituals, endlessly repeated. They appeardifferent because they are done bydifferent groups of individuals andbecause the memory of those whotheoretically could remember blurs withtime.

Most art machines are the artists'assistants and must performin a mannerprescribedby their makers. In the case ofHarold Cohen, the machine changes itsstatus by becoming a studentwith his/herown incipient ideas. In this instance, it isthe machine, or rather the program, thatis learning to produce works of art.Cohen's program, AARON, has passedthrough variousdevelopmentsduringthepast 14 years and is now capable ofproducingdrawings,one afteranother,ofconsiderablevariety and interest (Fig. 5).While a pen-holding cart manoeuvresabout a large sheet of paper, its positionand information about the placing oflines are continuously fed back to thecomputer. The program assesses whathas been done and either continues orfinishes the drawing. Each picture has adiscerniblecharacterin the disposition offorms as well as in their complexity andtheir density. Sometimes AARON'spicturesare crowded, sometimes they aresurprisingly sparse. The program in-corporates information about the laws ofperspective and various technical con-straints, e.g. that a line/shape hiddenbehind another shape must be invisible.AARON's output is clearly recognisableas the work of an individual producing aseries of variations on a theme. AARONis young-only 14-but, even though 14years is a long span in machine-time,he isso far the sole exponent of the group thatcould be said to be producing its ownpictures. To my knowledge, no other artstudents exist in this category.AARON's picturesaremadeaccordingto humanaestheticcriteria. Some of themare almost figurative (Fig. 6). Whateverhis future, AARON is still entirely underthe influence of his professor and what iscurrently the lingua franca in Westernlate twentieth-century art. We can onlyassume that in due course machines maydecide to produce their own machineart,and incorporating images of machines ortheir programs could be the first sign of

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their self-interest. Taking this possibilityto a logical conclusion, humans face aproblem. How will they be able torecognise what, among all the machine-produced works, is a real work of artaccording to machine criteria? M.J.Rosenberg has given some considerablethought to this problem in his book TheCybernetics of Art: Reason and theRainbow [6]. His solution is that onewould have to get another similarmachine to evaluate the products of thefirst machine which claims to beproducingworks of art. The firstmachinemust not be aware that it is beingassessedby the second lest it try to please byproducing works of the sort that mightbethought fashionable or indulge in somejokes that the human observers may notunderstand. In these circumstances, itwould be best for humans to become

meta-observers and solely to watch thereactions of the second machine. Thisprocedure would enable humans todiscover if the works of the first machinewere indeed works of art. The author ofthis thesis does not discuss thepossibilitythat the second machine could either liewhen making its evaluation or assure usthat something is art when it is not, forfear of being misunderstoodor of causingdisappointment to its human audience.Machines too may have problems indeciding where art ends and environmentstarts. They too may have to adjust theircriteriato social pressures.One hundredmachine generations hence, whenmachines no longerwork becausenothingmore remains to be done, it might bepossible to assume that all works done byall machines are works of art whethergood, bad or indifferent.What else could

they be? It will then be time for some newincumbent to start making art as distinctand separate from anything and every-thing else. Naturally, the problems ofrecognition would start all over again.

REFERENCESAND NOTES1. Pataphysicss the scienceof imaginarysolutions,as definedbyAlfredJarry.2. PaulB.Haviland, tatementn291,Nos.

7-8 (September-October915).3. FrancisPicabia,"FrenchArtistsSpurOn AmericanArt",TheNew YorkTimes(24October1915).4. LewisMumford, echnicsndCivilization(NewYork:Harcourt, 934)p. 363.5. A.M. Low, The Future (London:Routledge, 925).6. M.J.Rosenberg,TheCyberneticsfArt:Reasonand the Rainbow New York:GordonandBreach,1983).

Call for PapersV i s u a l A r t a n d Robotics

The editors of Leonardo nvite artists andothers to submit manuscript proposals on workinvolving robots and contemporaryart for publication consideration.Work should involve the use of actual robots and machines, or use of robots to producevisual art, sculpture, or performance art. Scientists and engineers are also invited tosubmit articles describing developments in artificial intelligence, robotics, telematics,control theory, and other technical fields whichmaybe of interest to artists. Arthistoriansand theoreticians may submit articles tracing the role of the machine in art.Manuscriptproposals should be less than two pages and includeup to two illustrations togive the editors concrete information on the proposed manuscript.Editorial guidelines may be found on the outside back cover of the journal. Additionalinformation may be obtained from the main editorial office: Leonardo,2020 Milvia St.,Berkeley,CA 94704, U.S.A.Articles published in Leonardo n this area include:* NORMAN NDERSEN:honic Sculpture in Mechanically Activated Musical Instru-ments in a SculpturalContext, 19, No. 2, 99 (1986).* LEONARD UTCHINSONith ROBERT LEMENTS:iewer Sensitive ElectronicallyControlled Clay Sculpture, 19, No. 2, 127(1986).* TIMOTHYICHARDS:erformingObjects:Technology Without Purpose, 17, No. 4,237 (1984).* STEPHENWILSON:Environment-Sensing Artworks and Interactive Events: ExploringImplications of Microcomputer Developments, 16, No. 4, 188(1983).* JACKVANARSKY: nimated Sculptures:Figuration and Movement, 15, No. 4, 306(1982).* CHARLESLEXANDER:culpture:Science Fiction Machines, 9, No. 2, 119(1976).Copies of these articles or any articlespublished in Leonardoare available at a nominalcost by writing to ISAST, P.O. Box 421704, San Francisco, CA 94142, U.S.A.

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