Reading Reflection 2: Machine Art and Kinetic Art

The terms “machine art” and “kinetic art” have changed meanings over time as people’s ideas about technology and art have shifted.

In the first chapter of Broeckmann’s book, he looked back at the history of defining “machine art”. At first, Tatlin believed that art was dead. To make art long live, the art of the machine was a necessity. He wanted to detach technical materials from the industrial context to turn them into artistic media with subjective intention and control over artwork but “it preserved art as a practice outside of the overall processes of social production.” Later, Futurists focused on machines’ symbolic meanings to explore in artistic practice. Barr believed beauty could come from functionality in industrial production beyond the artist’s creation. Then, Munari was aware of the danger of the utilitarian spirit of machines and argued for the aesthetics of “dysfunctionality and uselessness”. At the end of the twentieth century, Schneckenburger described these aesthetic approaches to machines as “the dream of the beauty of technics”. These different views show how the concept of “machine art” has been vague throughout the twentieth century, reflecting ongoing discussions about artistic engagement with technology. Therefore, Broeckmann proposed a conception of the machine as “a particular type of relation between individuals and the structures, or apparatuses, that bring about human subjectivities.”

In Burnham’s book, he focused on the term “kinetic art”. He defined it as a form of non-representational art driven by real-time parameters and motion. Kinetic sculpture has most often been mere motorized sculpture, concerned with motions resulting from forces directly connected to physical systems. However, successful Kinetic Art until now has been considered as defying the principles of mechanical invention. The early stages of Kineticism showed a dichotomy between inert object sculpture and moving sculpture, both striving to transcend their traditional status as sculpture. The New Tendency emphasized “visual phenomenon”, aiming to realize motion in new visually complex forms. Being labeled “The Unrequited Art” due to its ties to outdated methods, Kinetic Art has always been struggling with technical, aesthetic, and commercial challenges. But this kind of immaturity leads to much unexplored potential for future innovation.

• Len Lye

Rotating Harmonic, 1959, steel rod, motor, copper and wooden base, 140 x 40 x 40 cm. 

“So you’ve got a kind of drama going on whether this metal could accept this energy and you felt it as such– there seemed to be some kind of living business and in a way it was.  So far as metal and resonance and stuff goes it was natural to the order of energy in nature.  Feedback, harmonics, reciprocation, and so on.” – Len Lye

Len Lye’s work focused on technical representation of natural energy. He tried to find beauty in basic motion principles by translating the concepts like harmonics and reciprocation to visual forms through kinetic machines. He shuttled a spring steel wire from side to side and induced the wire to whirl. A three-dimensional ‘virtual’ shape in space can be generated automatically and self-controlled by changing the motor speed.

• Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis)

Pendule Musicale, 1966, wood, magnet, wire, and metal sewing needle, 200 x 80 x 20 cm

Takis associated technology and artistic vision and showed the expressive potential of industrial materials in this work. Takis took magnetic force as technology to represent nontech phenomena like the construction of musical sounds and the relationship between space and invisible forces. He pursued beauty by using magnetic waves caused by electricity as a means to activate repeated musical sounds, showing the beauty of functional technical form. He installed an electromagnet behind a white monochrome surface that attracted and repelled dangling needles as they moved over stretched musical wires connected to sound amplifiers, forming a kinetic sculpture. Finally, the music produced by the sculpture is mechanical, which is a sliding sound produced by the metal materials interacting with each other, influenced by magnetic forces. The machine operations can be self-controlled and generated automatically.

Both artworks are very inspiring in their representation of natural power. The beauty of functional machines themselves is attractive. Instead of hiding the machines, I would like to show their motion in my future art projects to present kinetic geometric aesthetics.  Also, it is worth a try to turn 2D images into 3D objects by using the machines.

Reference

Broeckmann, A. (2017). “Introduction: The Phantom of ‘Machine Art.’” In Machine Art in the Twentieth Century

Broeckmann, A. (2017). “Toward the Art and Aesthetics of the Machine.” In Machine Art in the Twentieth Century

Burnham, J. (1969). Kineticism: The Unrequited Art, from Beyond Modern Sculpture 

Bonhams : Takis (panayiotis vassilakis) (Greek, born 1925) pendule musicale